Lifeline

Nothing like DC

2010-09-26T16:18:00.002+02:00

I've been in the Netherlands for more than a month now, in Amsterdam for almost four weeks, and I started my job at ING about three weeks ago. Nevertheless, it sometimes feels as if I'm still in DC. When I see a tv-reporter comment on American politics in front of the Capitol, it still feels like it's right around the corner. When I see NY on tv or in a movie, it feels like it's just a short busride away. When I go for a run through the Dutch meadows or city-parks, I imagine passing the DC zoo and crossing Rock Creek Park. When I read about the World Bank and the IMF, it's like I'm reading about my neighbors, and when I ride my bike, it feels as if the next turn could just as well be Pennsylvania Avenue. Sometimes I want to speak English to my Dutch friends, and I have to remind myself all the time that shopkeepers speak Dutch.
But there's no White House anywhere near here, and instead of an eloquent black president I have to listen to a stuck-up, mispronouncing queen. Instead of Penn-avenue's wide lanes, I'm now walking the narrow streets next to the canals in Amsterdam, and the financial center where I work consists of a few high-rise office buildings and lots of social housing. DC's summer heat has been replaced by a gray sky, a cold wind a frequent showers, and New York once again turned into a fancy destination for a long trip abroad.
It's hard to get used to this change, but when I look at the beautiful 17th century houses in Amsterdam, when I hang out with my Dutch friends who had been so far away the past two years, and when I hear about the great things I'll be able to do at ING, I realize it's not that bad in the Netherlands. I'll just have to learn to appreciate it all again.

Road tripping

2010-08-29T16:44:00.004+02:00

Everybody knows that the US is a huge country, but I wanted to see it with my own eyes. I also wanted to see all those places that I had heard about, but never visited: New Orleans, Texas, the Colorado, Los Angeles, the sequoias etc. The best way to do this, of course, is by making a road-trip. First, Chloe and I wanted to rent a car, but luckily we found someone who wanted his car driven from DC to San Francisco - exactly where we wanted to go.

So on August 16th, we got into the Honda Hybrid - me with all the stuff I would take to the Netherlands after our trip - and headed south. It was really hard to leave DC behind, I enjoyed the two years that I lived there so much. I met great people, learned a lot, got some great experiences - and met the love of my life! Luckily, she would stay with me for the rest of the road-trip, and will someday also move to the Netherlands.

But as hard as it was to leave DC, I had a great journey ahead of me that I had been looking forward to and dreaming of for months. The US would finally reveal itself as we headed further and further to the West. Driving so far and seeing so many different places was like a 2-week long trip of intoxication. Every town and every road offered new impressions, new amazement and new experiences. I won't bother you with all the details, but just describe some of the highlights:

In Savannah, we stayed at Tybee Island, a wetland about 20 miles east from the city. While it was great to be able to swim in the sea in the morning, the most amazing experience was a overwhelming thunderstorm the first night we were there. After dinner, we walked on the beach while huge clouds drifted through the sky. It wasn't raining, but every second another lighting bolt illuminated the sky, the sea and the beach. After enjoying this wonder of nature for about 30 minutes, we made a dash to the car and made it just in time before the downpour.

In New Orleans, EA Sports launched a new football-game and as a promotional event the software-developer sponsored a free concert with Cowboy Mouth and Galactic. All football-fans gathered and sang along to Cowboy Mouth's "anthem" of the Saints winning the super-bowl and danced to Galactic's funk. On our way to Austin, we made a short stop at Beaumont, where the first large Texan oil-field was discovered at Spindletop, and we visited the Gladys City Boomtown Museum, named after the drilling company that discovered the field.

In Austin, we enjoyed our time at Highball, a great bar with live music and bowling alleys, the Continental Club, the many vintage clothing stores, the great cafe's and restaurants (organic, vegetarian, fair trade, locally farmed, you name it) and the largest urban bat population in the world! Every day at sunset, the bats would fly out form under the S Congress bridge over the Lady Bird lake and hunt the many insects there. It results in a spectacle of hundreds of bats flying around, watched by both tourists and locals.

In Utah, the rock-formations in Arches National Park and the vastness of Canyonlands were incredible. Walking around, we felt like Alice in Wonderland discovering Lewis Carroll's imaginary world - nature had come up with things crazier than a Mad Hatter or a Chester Cat! I can't really describe it, you just have to go there sometime.
On our way to California, we crossed Nevada through the Loneliest Highway (route 50): 300 miles of road with just a few old mining towns for gas and food.

And then: California! Finally I saw that famous state. In San Francisco, I marveled at the hippie-infested Haight-Ashbury district, where beautiful fashion shops and a great record store where lined by street-artists, creative minds and bums. A very interesting place. I was also happy to discover Japan Town, a huge shopping mall with all kinds of Japanese stores inside and around it. It made me feel as if I was back in Tokyo.

In LA we spent most of the time swimming and relaxing at Venice beach, but I also had to see the beach-town El Segundo (after listening to A Tribe Called Quest since I was 14 years old) and Hollywood boulevard. The first was nothing special at all, the second was just a large tourist-trap.

After LA, we went back north, and after visiting a friend of Chloe we went camping at King's Canyon, where we saw some huge sequoia trees. When I was a child, I played the song Meta Sequoia by the Dutch guitar-player Harry Sacksioni, so it was great to see where he got his inspiration for that song.

And finally, we headed back to San Fransisco, from where I took the plane back to the Netherlands. It was an amazing way to end my stay in the US, seeing so many different things in such a short time, like a compressed, miniature version of the previous two years.

Goodbye United States, I miss you.

On the road

2010-07-26T22:28:00.004+02:00

So I’ll be moving back to the Netherlands by the end of August. Even though I hoped to stay in the US for a bit longer than two years, I didn’t manage to break with my post-high-school routine of moving to a different country on at least a biannual basis. But it will be good to be closer to friends and family, and living in Amsterdam will be a new experience for me after living in Beerze and Leiden.

Before moving back, though, I am planning to get to know the US better by making a road-trip to California. The tentative route will include Savannah, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; Austin, Texas; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Moab, Utah; Los Angeles, California and finally San Francisco. It should be a good mix of cities and natural parks, hostels and campsites, coast and inland and desert and mountains, so I’m excited. Finally I’ll get to see the great natural beauty of the US I’ve heard so much about.

But it’s also fun to be on the road in DC, and to get to know this city better. With that purpose – and to make some money for the long road-trip – I’ve started working as a bike-messenger. I was always intrigued by the fearless guys (and some girls) who ride their awesome looking bikes through traffic to deliver documents and packages all over town as quickly as possible. So now I get to go from law-firms to government departments, from travel agencies to embassies and from NGO’s to accounting firms to file documents, deliver paychecks, apply for visas and pick up financial statements for audit. I is a great way to get to see the buildings where organizations such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the DC District Federal Court, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Human Rights Watch etc. are located.

It also offers me the opportunity to get to know DC from a whole different perspective. Instead of the well-equipped, protective and comfortable environments of universities or office buildings, the streets in DC expose you to the weather and traffic, and allow interaction with homeless and hustlers. Talking to other bike-messengers and service staff of office buildings also shows the less glorious side of DC, where people don’t get the salary, security and perks that go with a job at a law-firm or a government agency. While most people visualize such more glamorous occupations when thinking about DC, the majority of those that are born and raised here end up doing the more mundane tasks, and now I finally have a chance to experience that life-style too. I must say, I enjoy it for the time being, but I’m glad that I have the prospect of a job at a Dutch bank, where I don’t have to worry about exposure to the elements, getting into an accident or the amount of my income. It will also be nice to learn new things again, because by now there are few surprises left in my day-to-day activities.

Another great way to explore the area around DC is on a motorized bicycle. After getting my motorcycle endorsement in May, I finally hit the road on a rented bike (at the front in the picture) a few weeks ago together with Mike, whom I had met at the motorcycle training. It was great to see the countryside in Maryland without the confinement of a car. A motorcycle also offers a much more direct experience of the speed, power and sound produced by the engine, making it less of a mind-numbing activity such as driving a car can turn into. I was always wondering what it would be like to ride a bike, and now I finally got to experience it! And I must say, it made me appreciate and understand America’s love of motor-vehicles a bit more.

That was even more so after Mike took Chloe and me to a car-show in Manassas, about 40 miles west of DC. There, car-lovers who had bought and restored classic beauties such as old Ford Mustangs, Chevrolet Corvettes, Dodge Challengers etc. showed off their cars, often with the hood open to make the engine visible. Strong symbols of the time when the US car industry was still alive and well. Why don’t they make cars like that anymore?

Banking on the Future

2010-07-13T01:59:00.003+02:00

The last semester at the George Washington University was a great introduction to the next stage of my studies: real-life application of everything I’ve learned so far.

As far as courses are concerned, Global Investment Banking gave an interesting overview of the main activities investment banks engage in, accompanied by great stories based on the experiences of Mr. Seale, who started his own investment bank and had been teaching the course for a good number of years. It made me all the more interested in finance, but I also realized that I didn’t want to help just any company go public or take over another company. I want to do that for companies that play a pivotal role in economic development and sustainability, such as power generation, infrastructure, finance or telecom. Those kind of industries is where I want to apply my knowledge.

For my International Portfolio Management course, I had to put together a portfolio of securities to maximize the return on the portfolio. While this was an interesting exercise, I also realized that I wanted to engage in more long-term investment with the goal of helping a company (or rather a community or country) grow, not just to make money for myself or my client.

For the Capstone project, I developed a financial model for a waste-to-energy plant. That was a lot of fun, and it made me realize that I like to work with numbers and manipulate them in Excel. It's like solving a complex puzzle using the countless tools offered by Excel. That is something I want to learn more about and get more experience in in the near future.

Apart from coursework, I learned a lot from my experience with SIFE GWU. While I finished my project that aimed to teach artists how to be more successful in marketing their work, I didn’t manage to find a successor and build a sustainable team. So SIFE GWU doesn’t exist anymore. I guess it takes more time and dedication, more motivated people and a longer breath to set up a team. I still like to implement my own ideas, though, and I hope to start something up again in the future, but hopefully in a more professional, thorough way.

Another lesson I learned during the last semester is that job search, career and compensation are quite different in the US and in the Netherlands. I sent out many resumes to American companies, applying for all kinds of jobs with investment funds, development agencies, clean-tech start-ups and financial institutions, but barely heard back from them. Even if I would have gotten a job, I probably would have been doing some kind of back-office task for the first few years before moving on to the interesting stuff. I might have gotten a really nice salary, but not many vacation days or other benefits. Basically, what I realized is that a master’s degree doesn’t mean much here. You need at least a couple of years of experience and well developed technical skills to start at an interesting position at any company.

In the Netherlands, on the other hand, I think many employers expect more from recent graduates, especially if they have a master’s degree. Because you should be smart, learn quickly and be highly motivated, you are involved in a wide range of activities, including decision making processes. At least, that was already the case when I interned with the procurement department at ABN AMRO. Even if the salary might be a bit lower, this is more than compensated by a wide range of benefits, including a good amount of vacation.

So I not only applied for jobs in the US, but also in the Netherlands, and a few weeks ago, I passed the final round of interviews with ING Bank and got accepted in their ING Talent Program. This traineeship contains a six-week long intensive banking course, followed by a few rotations at different departments. I applied for their Commercial Banking program, and hope to focus on structured finance, which includes the financing of energy, infrastructure and power projects. ING aims to expand their lending activity in these sectors, so I think it will be a great opportunity to get some experience – learning more about what I like while applying everything I’ve learned so far.

Shaking things up a bit

2010-02-25T23:48:00.004+01:00

Every once in a while I read the op-ed by Dutch comedian Youp van 't Hek on the website of the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. I love the way he discusses high-profile events from the lowlands. He never fails to point out how narrow-minded some of the key players in those events can be, and how large egos can harm such a small country. Some of the best examples of course are the sell-out of ABN AMRO to RBS, Santander and Fortis, after which CEO Rijkman Groenink left what used to be the biggest bank of the Netherlands with a bonus of about 26 million euros. Or Dirk Scheringa who orchestrated the rapid growth of the DSB Bank through misleading credit terms for high-risk consumers. This eventually led to a massive walk-out of disgruntled customers, pushing the bank into bankruptcy and depriving the US speed-skating team from one of their main sponsors.
But one line of Youp van 't Hek, which he used in his show "Scherven" (Broken Glass), has echoed through my head for the last few days. When, during a dinner, one of his friends asks the father of another friend several tough questions, such as "Why, as a banker, do you provide credit to companies that contribute to the destruction of the planet?" or "Why do you think you are driving a high-occupancy vehicle because you have your own driver?", the atmosphere at the table soon deteriorates - but at least it shakes things up a bit.

Lately, quite some things have been shaken up considerably. First of all, the Dutch coalition has collapsed, after the coalition-parties couldn't reach an agreement on the duration of the Dutch mission in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. Personally, I am glad that the Labor Party stuck to their deadline of 2010 to pull out. In the beginning I supported the Dutch presence in Afghanistan because I believed we did a good job there (especially compared to the indiscriminate destruction by deadly US drones), but after seeing several documentaries, notably the one by Tegenlicht, or Backlight, I realized how surreal it is to go into a country as Afghanistan and think you can solve problems that you have nothing to do with. So it's better to pull out. Even decades of foreign intervention will not change the local situation, so why waste money on it. Obama's surge is just an excuse to impose a deadline by which the US can leave and say: at least we tried. In the meanwhile, the Taliban are waiting until those over-equipped and scared foreigners move out so that they can take over the country again.

But back to the Dutch coalition. It's an interesting experience trying to explain the procedure to an American: "So, the coalition parties didn't agree on one issue of their agenda, and therefore they can't cooperate anymore" - That's how much coalition parties trust each other. And now we're delivered to the mercy of the Dutch population. Unfortunately, the Dutch population has shown rather populist tendencies lately, giving the right-wing Party for the Freedom 17.4% of the votes, according to a poll by Synovate. That would give it the same number of seats in the Parliament as the Labor Party (27), while leaving the Christian Democratic Party the largest with 31 seats. I hope the Dutch people will come to their senses and realize that radicalization can't solve problems, but as our deputy-CEO said lately: "Something always comes out if you shake things up a bit."

RETech 2010 + Snowmageddon

2010-02-10T01:40:00.010+01:00

From February 3-5 the Renewable Energy Technology Conference and Exhibition took place at the Convention Center of Washington, DC. During this event, specialists gathered for speeches, workshops, exhibitions and discussions about the latest developments and initiatives in Renewable Energy Technologies. Of course, Taylor-DeJongh was there to promote their investment banking services, backed up by years of experience in the power and energy sector. In the few hours that I helped manage the booth on Friday, numerous people stopped by to pick our brains on financing opportunities for renewable energy projects, ranging from solar plants and new wind-turbine technology to energy efficient buildings and biofuels.
One of the other exhibitors at RETech 2010 was Concord Blue Energy, a US license holder of a German technology that allows power-generation from waste through pyrolytical gasification, resulting in high energy efficiency and very low CO2 emissions. Solar Millenium also had a booth on the exhibit floor. This German Concentrated Solar Power manufacturer was one of the first companies to build large-scale parabolic trough plants in Europe with the Andasol projects in Spain. It's subsidiary, Solar Trust of America, is planning to do the same thing in California, Nevada and Arizona. Covanta, one of the leading waste-to-energy companies in the US, was also there to promote its products. Even though no waste-to-energy plants has been built in the US over the past 20 years, this will hopefully change now that dumping trash into a landfill is becoming more and more expensive. Another interesting company was Suzlon, the Indian wind-turbine manufacturer that has a large market share in the US market through its subsidiary REPower.
Apart from companies, states and countries also promoted their RE capabilities, mainly to attract investments in projects and start-ups or trade. Among them were Nevada, Ontario, Italy, Denmark, Japan etc. And of course many government agencies and industry associations offered their services during the trade fair.
It was great to see so many people who were actively promoting renewable energy solutions, but it is unfortunate that so many governments still drag their feet to provide the right incentives to make this market really take off. Especially given the current economic climate, many investors and lenders are wary to take any risk at all, making it very hard for new technologies to raise sufficient funds for commercial scale development.

During a breakfast-event at the law-firm K&L Gates, Senator Barbara Boxer of California, one of the sponsors of a climate bill that was introduced in the Senate, emphasized how the US will end up lagging behind while countries like China, Japan and Germany develop state-of-the-art RE manufacturing and development capabilities. So there are certainly members of Congress who would like to see a climate bill move forward, but given the time it takes to adopt a much-needed health-care bill, I don't have much confidence in any climate-legislation being implemented in the US this year.

While RETech 2010 was supposed to last until Friday-evening, the snowstorm that was coming to DC made the organization decide to close up early, and by 1:30pm most exhibitors had left the floor. While it was still relatively easy to move around last Friday, the snow really came down on Saturday and made it virtually impossible for cars to even leave their parking spot. Many people participated in huge snowball-fights that occured throughout the city (including yours sincerely), while others recorded the transformation of DC into a ski-resort. Metros were only running on the tracks underground, and on Monday the federal government was closed. Yesterday things became a bit better, but last night it has been snowing again so all streets and cars are once more covered under a thick layer of water crystals.

Our street

At the intersection of 16th St and Columbia Road

Last semester

2010-01-17T21:49:00.006+01:00

Christmas-decorations in the suburbs of Detroit can take on gargantuan proportions.

A new year, a new semester, a new blogpost - finally. Let's just say that blogging isn't on the top of my priority list when I also have classes, an internship, work and a girlfriend. But I do want to keep you informed about my life here, so let me give you a quick summary of last semester.

I started an internship with Taylor-DeJongh, an financial advisory firm that has an extensive track record of helping companies and governments raise funds for oil&gas, infrastructure and power projects. A great place to learn more about financial modeling, capital markets, project finance and the energy sector. I'm personally mainly interested in renewable energy, but for most of the industrial era and the foreseeable future, fossil fuels have and will play a pivotal role in the economic activities of any industrialized country. So I was happy to learn more about this industry: the major players, the major technologies, the supply chain, the political and social issues etc. I always wanted to know more about it, and it is great to get an insider's view now. I have been working there three days a week from September until December. That was a very short period considering what there is to learn about project finance and energy, so I'll continue working for them this semester.

For my studies I took the courses international business finance, international banking and financial statement analysis. But what's probably more interesting is what I did next to work and study. One great event - from my perspective - was the Dutch celebration of the establishment of New York 400 years ago, when Henry Hudson sailed up what's now called the Hudson River in 1609 and the Dutch established a trading post there. Part of the celebrations was a job-swap between people from New York and people from Amsterdam. First, the Dutch would spend a week with their counterpart in New York, and then the New Yorkers would spend a week in the Netherlands. During these exchanges, they were asked to keep up a blog about their experiences. A friend of mine, who was involved in organizing this program, asked me if I could help out translate some of these blogs. I translated the blogposts of the architect, the bartender, the prosecutor, the farmer, the firefighter and the foodbank employee from English into Dutch. It was great to read about their exchange - their different opinions and backgrounds, their similarities, their enthusiasm about the event. You should certainly take some time to read some of the blogposts. They show how people at two sides of the Atlantic Ocean can share a passion for the same profession, work in different systems, learn from each other and bring back part of the experience back to their job at home. The best part of the story is that, when I went to New York in October, I seized the opportunity to go to Jimmy's no 43, the bar of the New Yorkian bartender. When I told him I had been translating his blogposts, he sat down at our table, got us some great beers (and kept them coming for the rest of the night) and told about his job, the job-swap, food and beer (his passion) and we had a great time.

The next time I went to New York was to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends of Chloe's (my girlfriend). Thanksgiving is a big thing in the US, so it was nice to experience it with so many people. I guess it's similar to what I'm used to of Christmas - having a nice dinner with family, but not much more. Christmas in the US, though, is very different. After looking forward to it for the whole semester, Chloe and I rented a car and drove to Detroit -the legendary birthplace of assembly-line production and of Chloe. Most of her family still lives there, so she normally celebrates Christmas in Michigan. It was a nine-hour ride through Maryland, past the coal-mines and mountains of Pennsylvania, the plains and the refineries of Ohio and the lakes and industries of Michigan, to eventually arrive in the suburbs of Detroit. It's amazing to see a city that's so spread out, where cars not only represent a vital part of the economy, but also of people's lives. Without a car, it's almost impossible to get anywhere. To go from a suburb to Detroit proper, you have to take the highway for 15-30 minutes, and you barely see anybody walking on the streets of downtown Detroit. In a way it is a gloomy city, with many abandoned factory buildings (mainly from before the current crisis) and foreclosed houses, but at the same time Detroit evokes a kind of pride in people from the area - the pride of being part of American history, contributing to state-of-the-art mechanical engineering and building up ones life with ones own two hands, depicted in the great mural painted in the Detroit Institute of the Arts in 1932. Now that this lifestyle has become more difficult, that pride might have taken a serious blow, but I don't think it will ever disappear.
One example of what Detroit has to offer, despite a lifeless economy, was Cadieux Cafe. There, great Belgian beer was combined with the rock and roll of the Rumpshakers and a Belgian game called feather bowling (or trabollen, in Dutch). It is similar to playing petanque (a french game) on a giant lane, with a feather instead of the small ball and wooden cheese-wheels instead of the larger balls. It was great to see that this unique part of Belgian culture had found its way to Detroit and was now fully integrated in the local people's pass-time.

After Detroit, we drove on to Chicago to visit more family of Chloe. After the view of a tore-down Detroit, driving into Chicago and seeing a beautiful skyline was amazing. Chicago, where some of the world's first skyscrapers were built, has a down-town area with many elaborate high-rise buildings, a beautiful Millennium park and some shiny sculpture known (and shaped as) the Bean. In Chicago we met many great people, enjoyed the lively (but cold) streets, celebrated New Year's eve in a great bar and Chloe's birthday on the 74th floor of the Hancock building and in a Mexican restaurant.

When all that great fun time was over, we drove back to DC in about 12 hours and went back to work the next day. It was a great intermission of the academic year, a great way to meet many great people, and I'm looking forward to going back there some day.

Now on to the last semester of my studies!

Blurring contrasts

2009-09-19T17:23:00.004+02:00

So what happened exactly the past month? I must say, even I don't know exactly - or don't remember, or don't believe. A little bit more than a month ago I was still in Lebanon, negotiating tariffs with taxi-drivers, drinking arak, smoking arkile (hooka), walking through Beirut from coast to club, swimming in the Medditeranean sea, dealing with power outages, eating the best hummus, lebneh (kind of yoghurt) and saj (flat bread), learning new things and meeting new people every day. I had gotten used to the new shiny offices and the old demolished buildings with bullet holes, the humongous hummers and the riding wrecks, the talks about political coalitions and religious mistrust, the soldiers on the streets and the weapons people have at home, the beautiful sea and the ugly cities, the pious priests and the vicious followers, the animosity towards Israel and the skepticism towards Arab countries - and all that within a few square kilometers. It makes you indifferent, in a way, and it forces you to conquer your own living space among all those different social, religious, political and professional forces. I felt like I could finally plant my flag in my humble piece of territory in Beirut.
And then, I got on a plane, visited Istanbul for one day, and found myself back in the Netherlands. The flat, structured, well-organized, consociational (polder-model-governed) Netherlands. The contrast couldn't have been bigger. The trains ride on time (there are trains, to start with), what you see is what you get, prices are predictable, energy, water and gas are in ample supply and I know my way around in the streets, the neighborhoods and the cities. It was great to be back, but it was hard to leave Lebanon. I had met so many great people there and had gotten to a point where I could honestly say they were my friends - and now I had to leave. Of course, I knew it in advance, and in a way, Lebanon isn't a place for outsiders, so maybe it was just time for me to leave, but I wish I could take all the great things with me - or go back some day. Regardless, I will cherish the memories and think back about my time there with great joy.
That time already seemed like ages ago during my tour through the Netherlands. In order to meet as many friends and family-members as possible in the 12 days I had, I visited Beerze (my homevillage), Den Bosch (to see my grandparents), Utrecht, Leiden (my university-town) and of course Amsterdam. And in the meanwhile I also went to Hardenberg (where I went to high-school), Ommen (to visit my grandmother) and Rotterdam. It was great to see everybody again - and to share these topographical aspects of my history with Chloe. I loved the countryside around Beerze and Hardenberg - the forest, the down-to-earth and friendly people, the quiet, the space, the skies. It was great to go back to the canals and historical buildings in Utrecht and Amsterdam. I feasted on the multicultural influences from Surinam, Indonesia, China and the Middle East eating great, cheap meals in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Leiden. And of course I took a walk down memory lane visiting my former house-mates in Leiden and drinking with my former fellow students in the bars I used to frequent back in the days (that is, a little more than a year ago). We did a lot of great things in the Netherlands, including walks, bike-rides and sailing and canoeing in the beautiful Dutch natural and urban environment - but I think it was mainly the normal things - the beers with friends, the dinners with family and the coffee with grandparents, that made it special.
And then, I got on a plane, watched some movies and found myself going through the homeland-security at Washington Dulles airport and riding the bus back to Columbia Heights. The time in the Netherlands was more like a holiday. Which was a strange experience: going on holiday in the country you grew up in. Now, in DC, I was back home - the place where I live, study and work. I had one weekend to get back to reality, and then classes and internship started. I was back home, I was forced back into the busy routine and the Lebanese contrasts faded into a blur. But it's a blur I hold dear.

More Middle East

2009-08-04T19:05:00.006+02:00

Even though it seemed such a hastle to me, even though I didn't know if there were any direct busses or taxis, even though I didn't know if I would need a new visa to come back, if there would be space in a cheap hostel or if my arabic was up to it, everybody told me I had to see Syria. Or at least Damascus. Even for just a weekend. So I asked people if they wanted to accompany me, people who had been there and knew how to get there and where to go. But nobody could join me.
So last Saturday morning I just tried my luck and walked to the nearest main road to the East. I knew there were vans going that way. Unfortunately, the driver of the bus I ended up in didn't know much about it and he dropped me of far away from the road I needed to get on. So I walked back, found a van and continued my way to Damascus. At Zahle (still in Lebanon), I got a service (shared taxi) to the border. At the border, the officers took a long time figuring out that at the airport I had been given a one-month visa, even though I had already received a three month visa in Washington. So eventually, they let me through, promising that I could get back on the three month visa. Yeah, sure, I know you guys by now, but like you guys, I don't really care. We'll see.
The Syrian officers were more straight to the point. They made the life of British and American tourists difficult and expensive, but apparently they didn't have a probem with Dutch people on Syrian soil. Too bad I first had to wait until the British girl in front of me agreed to pay $100 for her visa (my visa cost me $40, let's hope President Abbad uses it wisely).
And then there were just one more van and one more bus seperating me from the bustling center of Damascus. During my two-day stay there, I was trying to make up my mind if it was too touristic or not. The most interesting part of the city, Old Town, contained the main markets where rich men and women - mostly women - bought clothes with delicate brocade, golden jewels, exquisite furniture with inlaid mother-of-pearl, richly decorated swords or musical instruments and cheap toys for their children. The lively, colourful streets filled with all kinds of merchandise were a beautiful sight, the women from the Gulf, completely covered in black and mercilessly making their way towards luxury, bargains and famous religious landmarks were a nuissance. They were like Japanese women storming a department store on the first day of sales to get that very expensive stuff for just slightly expensive prices. May God be with them.
But hasn't Damascus always been a grand market-place? A main commercial hub between the East and the West? And weren't the goods offered then and now local specialties? Surely the beautiful musical instruments or tapestries were not made in China. It has probably never been much different in those popular markets, people have always been trying to drain the foreigners of their money and travellers have always been looking for a bargain, except that the customers now arrive by plane instead of by camel or horse.
Nevertheless, I was glad to find out that most streets in the Old Town are just leading to houses, small tea- and food-stores, little mosques or public bathhouses. Places where no black-clad woman would be interested in (okay, I saw a few there as well, but at least they were not pushing their way through). And finally, I got a taste of what I had imagined the Middle East to be like. Small houses build against city walls that have been standing there for centuries. Much visited mosques where foreigners are invited to come take a look, even during prayer. Locals who appreciate it if you speak Arabic, even if it's just a little bit. Youth who entertain themselves with arguile and backgammon instead of expensive private beaches and nightclubs. Old men sitting in front of their house in a small street were cars don't fit through, protected from the sun by a baldaquin of ivy or vines. Streets where more traditional jewels than Rolex-watches are offered, and where the call for prayer always sounds from multiple directions.
So Damascus was a great place to be a tourist. Being there for just two days (or two half days even), that's all I could be. I don't know what it would be like to spend more time there, with Bashar al Assad staring at me from the many posters displayed on lamp-poles and shop-doors, and where even traffic police look stern and uncompromising. To be sure, the strong state in Syria has enabled better public transportion, better infrastructure and much better tourist facilities than the feuding political factions of Lebanon. And even for foreigners, health care is practically free. At least, when my roommate lived there he could get immunization shots before going to India for less than a dollar. States do have a function, and regulation can help to make life easier.
So maybe life in Syria is easier than in Lebanon, despite the fact that the GDP per capita is less than half of that in Lebanon, even when adjusted for purchasing power (so people in Syria can buy half the goods in their own country as Lebanese can buy in Lebanon. I guess they just spend less money on things they don't need). But Syria seems to be less dynamic and certainly less diverse. While the many different religions in Lebanon have always been a source of unrest, they also enrich the country with different viewpoints, different mentalities and different lifestyles. Of course there is diversity in Syria, but it's not as evident as in Lebanon. In Syria there are some Christian towns - in Lebanon, most towns contains a large number of religions, with majorities and minorities switching sides according to the region.
And I think I've gotten used to the chaos. In Lebanon, you don't have to wait for the traffic light to cross the road. In fact, there are scarcely any traffic lights. In Lebanon, you don't have to be afraid of the authorities when you criticize them. In fact, I haven't met a single Lebanese who doesn't criticize the government. And I like that in a way. I guess Lebanon is sort of the Wild West of the Middle East. Where people, including many Syrian laborers, hope to find their fortune, even if they have to fight for it.
So when I wanted to go back there, I even had to fight my way across the border. Or at least, it took quite some arguing before the superior of the officer I was dealing with recognized the mistake they had made at the airport and let me back into the Wild West on my three-months visa. Now I have two more weeks to find my fortune.

The streets of Beirut

2009-07-25T11:35:00.002+02:00

In the streets of Beirut, lives unfold real-life before your eyes.
In the streets of Beirut, political parties ask for attention with billboards covering entire buildings. Flags express the prominance of the Lebanese Forces or Hezbollah in Christian or Muslim areas.
In the streets of Beirut, images of muslim saints or Islamic leaders, statues of Hail Mary and images of Jezus Christ remind the habitants of the religion in their neighborhood on every corner.
The streets of Beirut are always under construction, repairing damage sustained during one of the many wars or blocking traffic for months or years to create a new road or intersection.
In the streets of Beirut, cars, scooters and pedestrians compete for their part of the road in the chaotic traffic haphazardly directed by traffic-lights and police officers, emitting dark clouds of exhaust that cover the city in a grey mist.
In the streets of Beirut, taxi-drivers are always looking for passengers, honking at every pedestrian they see.
In the streets of Beirut, street peddlers sell food, drinks and all kinds of things. Kids and youngsters are walking along the cars in traffic jams under the sun offering chewing gum, goldfish or sunscreens for behind the windshields of SUV's trying to squeeze through the crowded streets. Kaak (a kind of bread), coffee and fruit sellers push their carts and announce their presence with their voice or by hitting two pieces of metal against each other.
In the streets of Beirut, old men play backgammon in front of coffee-shops and grocery-store owners doze off at their door waiting for customers. Kebab, falafel and menoushi-shops attract crowds of customers during lunchtime and anywhere between 8 and 2 at night, quickly filling scores of thin breads with vegetables and meat or fried chick-peas, or baking fresh bread with thyme/lemon spread.
In the streets of Beirut, minarets of the mosques play the call for prayer five times a day, filling the Islamic neighborhoods with sacred singing.
In the streets of Beirut, those who can't or don't want to drink beer in the fancy bars and clubs gather on the corner, sitting on scooters, streetcurbs and fences, smoking arguile, playing music and chatting.
The streets of Beirut are filled with loud explosions and flashes of light, especially at night in residential areas, where kids and youth entertain themselves with all kinds of fireworks.
In the streets of Beirut, soldiers sit on plastic chairs or armored vehicles keeping a watchful eye with their rifle resting on their lap.
The streets of Beirut are always alive, with noise, smells and sights that excite or tire ears and eyes.

The people and the cedars

2009-07-19T15:04:00.008+02:00

Last weekend I visited the beautiful Qadisha-valley with its numerous monastries, chapels and churches on Saturday. On Sunday I climbed Lebanon's highest mountain: Qornet es-Sawda. This weekend I went to the Baalbeck festival on Saturday to see a performance of the dance-group Caracalla featuring the famous Lebanese singers Assi Hellani and Hoda Haddad. The musical was about a Lebanese village where two tribes were competing for power. More important though was the story about a young girl (Hoda Haddad) and her lover (Assi Hellani) who had to prevent the marriage between the girl and the son of a snobbish lord in order to be together. Only to avoid the influence of this lord the two tribes decided to work together in the interest of Lebanon. It was a great performance of dancers, singers, actors and technicians in the midst of the magnificant ruins of Baalbeck, and brought together many aspects of Lebanese culture and history. Of course the Roman influence was evident from the temples, while the tribal society was part of the story-line. The choreagraphy was heavily influenced by the music- and danceform dabke, while the french influence was reflected in the character of the snobbish lord who used pas mal the french language.
But one of the most striking characteristics of Lebanon is, in my eyes, the factionalist society. While the two competing tribes in the play ended up cooperating in the name of Lebanon, in real life the public interest is not widely promoted in a joint effort. While the major part of the habitants of Baalbeck are muslim and support Hezbollah or Amal, most people in the audience of the prestiguous festival were (richer) christians supporting parties like the Lebanese Forces and the Future Movement (for a discussion of the different political parties, see an earlier post on this blog). While these parties might cooperate in parliament, there is very little raprochement between the different parts of the population.
I was also thinking about this when I walked back from the top of the Qornet as-Sawda to the vilalge Bcharre, exactly a week ago now. At the foot of the mountain, there is a small grove of cedar trees there. The cedar being the national symbol of Lebanon, the trees attracted large groups of domestic and international tourists whereever they are still growing. Unfortunately, the use of the trees for numerous goals going back as early as antiquity has left only a few groves with trees in Lebanon. The trees were so highly valued that they were exported for use in the construction of the temple of Solomon in Jeruzalem and sacrophagi in Egypt. Now, they are meticulously taken care of and only used for the production of souvenirs. So this symbol of Lebanon, the image and the country that is supposed to unite all the different groups that live within its borders, is almost extinct and can only exist under 24/7 protection. Like the peace in Lebanon seems to be possible only because there are scores of soldiers and checkpoints in the streets and on the highways.
In the bus back from the play in Baalbeck, I was wondering what the middle-aged christian ladies would think of the fate of the Palestinian girl next to me, and how it is possible that the descendants of the refugies of Palestine are still denied Lebanese citizenship. The Lebanese are planting new cedar trees now, but it will take decades, or centuries rather, before these trees will mature and become a natural part of the Lebanese landscape. If they are nurtured and taken care of well enough.

Developing The Group

2009-07-01T22:34:00.004+02:00

Of course elections and sightseeing in Lebanon are important, but in the end I came here to work for the microfinance organization Al Majmoua. It was a challenge to get there on the first day I was in Lebanon. It is located in a commercial district, not far from Hamra where I was staying at that time, but it was just off the main avenue and surrounded by dilapidated residential buildings and a construction site. Luckily I ran into a cab-driver who knew where it was, so I was brought right to the front-door.
While I had to get used to it in the beginning - as with any new job - I'm getting more and more the hang of it. It is great to get hands-on experience in that much talked about tool to 'fight poverty', popularized by Mohammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank.
Al Majmoua - 'The group' in Arabic - was initially set up by Safe the Children and only provided group loans to women. Now, 15 years later, the organization is independent and provides mainly loans to (male) individuals. As one of the first microfinance organizations, Al Majmoua has been able to become the biggest micro-loan provider. However, nowadays more and more competition appears in Lebanon, so the organization has to keep an eye on ways to increase efficiency and lower cost to provide loans for competitive prices.
And that is where I come in. I am supposed to perform an Activity-Based Cost analysis, what basically means that I have to measure how much time each activity related to issuing and servicing loans takes, convert that into a monetary value and that way calculate the exact cost of different loan products. So the first few weeks I spent finding out how loans are exactly issued, followed by extensive field-visits to see how much time it takes to fill out an application, sign contracts, follow up on overdue payments etc. Next to an excuse to see more of Lebanon, this research showed me how microfinance really works. The importance of the personal contacts of the loan analysts (the foot-soldiers of microfinance) became evident, as well as the difficulty to make significant efficiency gains in the chaotic working environment of hundreds of different clients spread out over the area under a certain loan analysts' responsiblity.
So that is what I'll be working on for the next few weeks, I guess: finding out how Al Majmoua can decrease costs, increase income and offer cheaper and more loans to those who need (and want) them the most. It's a priviledge to do this work, and I hope I can make a useful contribution to the organization.

Living in Lubnaan

2009-06-17T20:53:00.008+02:00

After spending two weeks in Lebanon (Lubnaan in Arabic) I start to feel more and more at home here. Which is strange in many ways, and natural in many others. It's strange, because I was just started to feel at home in the US. So after arriving in Beirut I felt far away from home (the US) while I was actually closer to my hometown (Beerze, the Netherlands). It was also strange to know that I would be so far away from my girlfriend for two and a half months, and still I am looking forward to leaving Lebanon to see her again. The language is also hard to deal with. Of course, Arabic is already difficult enough as it is, but I have even more difficulties with spoken Arabic (because I didn't study that the past year - as any university student I studied modern standard arabic, what nobody speeks). And anytime I try to speak Arabic, I get stuck, frustrated and switch to English or French, what most people speak fluently anyway.
Nevertheless, I feel comfortable here now. Many people and many factors contribute to this. I share a nice appartment with steady electricity (a rarity in Lebanon) and wireless internet that works most of the time with a French girl and an Italian guy who are both great people. We speak French most of the time, that beautifull language that I was already starting to forget, and we have a great balcony where we have drinks and narguile (I'm smoking one there right now actually). The neighborhood is nice and relatively quiet, and there's always something to do in Beirut. I'm meeting tons of new, interesting people who all seem equally hospitable and friendly, who take me to salsa-clubs, nice, local restaurants, the beach, other towns and cities and bars and parties. And Lebanon outside of Beirut is just incredible. There are beautifull mountains everywhere, a long shoreline with the Medditeranean see, nice small villages.
I had the opportunity to get to know some of that beautiful countryside when I went hiking in Mount Sannine, north-east of Beirut, where I finally saw that natural beauty that I heard of so much before I came here and that I have missed most of my life in the Netherlands, where we lack anything that resembles a mountain. In the winter, Sannine turns into a ski-resort flooded by tourists from the whole Middle East, and even under the burning summer-sun some snow remains on the tops of the mountain-ridge. I've also visited Tyre, a harbor-town in the south of Lebanon with an ancient roman hippodrome, and I went to a beach north of Beirut. Actually, there aren't that many sand-beaches in Lebanon, so when people 'go to the beach', they actually go to a place at the sea owned by a hotel where you can just sit next to the sea, order food, swim and get a sunburn. Yesterday I went to a small town 'in the mountains' - when people go out of Beirut, they always 'go to the mountains' - where the brother of a friend of mine owns a pattiserie. On Saturday I will go to an even smaller village next to it which is actually his hometown to meet his parents. Seeing this rural side of Lebanon made me really appreciate the country, because Beirut is in fact not really a beautifull city. From the mountains, behind a thick layer of smog, you can see both the Medditeranean and a sea of boring, concrete buildings that have to be restored or completely rebuilt every time a war has been going on here. So it's understandable they can't afford exquisite architectural tours de forces, but it doesn't make the city the nicest place to live. Luckily, the mountains are never much further than an hour by car away. So I can imagine myself staying here for eight more weeks, trying to enjoy as many of the great things this country has to offer as possible.

Lebanese Elections and European Fortification

2009-06-08T22:29:00.005+02:00

As most of you who have been reading this blog might know, Lebanon just elected a new parliament. First of all, I have to admit that I don't know much about Lebanese politics, so don't expect an in-depth analysis of the competing parties and the impact of the results. However, I was very curious about the whole process. How do people experience elections in Lebanon, where a stable democracy has not been around for much more than two decades, and where politics, religion, violence and foreign intereference has historically been an unseparable all-in package.
The streets had been dominated by the elections already long in advance. Huge billboards tried to convince voters to support certain parties. There was the red poster of Nadim Gemayel, leader of a right-wing (some say fascist) Christian Phalange party, mainly visible in Achrafiye, the district where he ran for office. The poster says: Solid, today and tomorrow. In the Christian neighborhood where I live, the Lebanese Forces are most popular, with their leader Samir Geagea. Their logo of the Lebanese cedar tree in a red circle is visible everywhere. This Christian party originated from Bashir's Phalange, but has now risen to more prominance. A few blocks from where I live is a mainly Shia (muslim) neighborhood, where the Amal and Hizbollah parties find much support. Hizbollah (the Party of God)'s poster - here in front of a devestated house that hasn't been restored after Israel's bombardments in 1996 or 2006 - has the crossed words Occupation, Aggression and something I can't read, and in large green letters Lebanon (they mainly want to end the Israeli occupation and aggression, that still continues in some parts of the south).

Before elections day on June 7th, everybody was wondering what would come. When I left office on Friday the 5th, everybody who left expressed their wishes to see everybody alife and well again on Tuesday (Monday was a holiday because the results of the elections would probably prevent a normal return to day-to-day activities anyway). So we didn't know what to expect. Would there be clashes, would there be heavy fighting, would it be peacefull?
Eventually, it all went relatively smoothly. There where some incidents in the South, in Tripoli and in Zahle, but nothing dramatic. In short, nobody was killed, something nobody expected, I think. What did make these elections different from what I had experienced in other countries where the frequent public expressions of party-affiliation. A group of young supporters of Amal (Hope) and Hizbullah, wich originated from Amal, where riding around on their scooters carrying flags of their parties and of Lebanon. The same ritual was performed by Christian supporters of Forces of Lebanon and other parties, but with cars in stead of motopeds. In fact, each party had their own honking-signal, so there was a lot of noise in the streets if a group of supporters passed.

Apart from such demostrations of support there was not much going on, though. Most shops were closed, there where not many people on the streets and the blocks around the polling stations were heavily guarded, so I didn't even try to get nearby. Local party offices blasted their campaign-music from big loudspeakers and the honking signals echoed in the empty streets, but otherwise the neighborhood was quiet and empty.
Once the first results came out, around 12:30 at night, it seemed like fighting had broken loose. Heavy blasts where ignited right next to our appartment (or so it seemed), but luckily those where just fireworks to celebrate the victory of the Christian parties. The previous majority, united in the "March 14" movement had maintained their power. Anyway, the winners of the elections would have to cooperate with the oppositions to form a government of national unity (which has been in place for about a decade now), so there would not be much change anyway.

So much for the Lebanese elections. As a Dutch citizen who very much feels affiliated with other European countries, I can't let the European elections pass by unnoticed. I was very surprised (and disturbed) to read that, according to the dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad "European voters voted for mainly (center) right-wing parties. Parties that have chosen for more market in Europe in the past few years." As opposed to more socialists parties, who advocate more restrictions of the free market. So, the market was the central theme of the elections, according to the NRC? If only that was true. I think Le Monde is closer to the truth when it asserts that "in this environment of distress, the voter becomes defensive and returns to the national framework and votes for the conservatives of his country." This is especially visible in the Netherlands, where the young Party for Freedom turned out as the second biggest party after the Christian Democrats. While this party advocates "more room for entrepreneurs" and "less bureaucracy", it is obsessively trying to limit the freedoms of Islamic residents of the Netherlands. That has nothing to do with free market, but more with a xenophobic tendency to try to keep the Netherlands as Dutch as possible (whatever that might be and for whatever reason). In the meantime, the PVV forgets that the Netherlands could only become the wealthy country it is today by adopting, exploiting and inviting (influences from) other cultures througout its history. I won't bother you with the details, I pretty sure that everybody knows that the tulip is actually a Turkish flower, the Indonesian occupation and slave trade laid the foundations of the Dutch so-called "golden century" and that "guest-laborers" provided a crucial workforce during the build-up after WWII. What I think is more interesting is the contrast between Lebanon and Europe, and in particular in the Netherlands. The Dutch have done away with their "collumnized" (verzuilde) society decades ago, so that now catholics, protestants, laborers and owners of capital go to the same schools, watch the same television channels and play in the same soccer teams. Now it seems that Europe is getting collumnized along christian-muslim and local-immigrant lines. In Lebanon, on the other hand, the passed elections have finally showed that power can be divided and shared in a non-violent way, with many christian, muslim and other parties expressing their support for this national unity. Maybe we should take their example and realize that different religions have to cooperate, because we will have to live together and deal with each other's differences. We can't force immigrants to abandon their culture or religion, and contrary to what Geert Wilders wants us to be afraid of, the Netherlands will never become an Islamic state. So should we appreciate and learn from our differences, or be afraid of it and try to suppress it?

Fancy bars and Filthy blocks

2009-06-04T17:05:00.005+02:00

After four days in Beirut, I start to understand why they call this city "the Paris of the Middle East". People act as if they are in Paris, wearing fancy clothes, driving in expensive cars, go to fancy bars and speaking french (on occasion). This might not be all that typical of Paris (many people in Paris don't act this way, and many people in other cities do), but I guess it corresponds to people's image of Paris - maybe the British or American gave Beirut this name, or even the Beirutis themselve.
Something normally not directly related to Paris, but present there as much as in Beirut (I think), is a large contrast between rich and poor. But maybe it's a bit more visible in Lebanon. Porches drive next to old, run-down Lada's, large bank-offices tower above dirty appartments and shoe-cleaners try to find customers in front of fashion-shops. Differences between adjacent neighborhoods are equilly striking. Walking through Beirut for about an hour, I came across the nicely restored and clean (touristic) center, a muslim neighborhood with dirty streets and small shops, the coastline with bars for tourists and Hamra with its entertainment and expats.
But Beirut is not Paris - indeed, it is still a Middle Eastern city. So while it contains many of Paris' features, there is more. Of course there is the Arabic on the street signs, Islam with its mosques and narguile with its water-pipes, but what strikes me mosts are the signs of conflict. Between domestic militias, between Israel and Lebanon, between Syria and Israel etc. Many buildings are currenlty being rebuilt or are still inhabitable after the Israelian bombings of 2006. Many walls are damaged by bullets and bombs. Guards and soldiers are keeping an eye on the streets at every corner (at least, in the richer neighborhoods). The upcoming elections of June 7 don't make the situation more secure.
Nevertheless, it seems to be going well compared to Lebanon's history of violence: after the numerous religious, ethnic and social groups realized they could never win because each one of them is too small to subdue all others, they decided to form a government of national unity. That has kept the situation relatively stable for the last decade or so, as long as foreign powers don't decide to intervene.
The upcoming elections are equally expected to lead to a new government of national unity, with a larger representation of the opposition parties. This should keep all parties satisfied enough to prevent any large outbursts of violence. To keep the risks limited, all of Lebanon will close down from Saturday until Monday. Until then I'm still walking through the streets jammed with cars, taxi's honking to attract my attention, bored soldiers keeping guard and gigantic advertisements for candidates in the parliamentary election.
All the while I'm trying to get a better insight in the 'Arabic' aspects of Beirut, but that's not as easy as I thought. The first few days here I stayed with a fellow student from George Washington University who is studying at the American University of Beirut for a semester. He lives with three other American students and mainly hangs out with foreigners. I must say that this made the transition relatively easy, but I did't come to Lebanon to feel as if I was in the US. I was also looking for 'local bars' that didn't try to be fancy and (in my eyes) western, but it seems that they are hard to find. In fact, a Lebanese-American colleague told me that Lebanese like the fancy bars and western entertainment, so it might be un-Lebanese if I would just go to small tea-houses and smoke narguile.
It seems to be equally un-Lebanese if I speak Arabic. Of course I studied 'formal' Arabic in Washington, so here people tell me I should learn Lebanese Arabic. The difference is substantial, but Lebanese are perfectly able to understand the formal version. For me, however, it is hard to make the transition, especially because I don't know exactly what is the same and what is different. So I probably end up saying less than I could say, because I think it's different in Lebanese. To make it even more difficult, everybody speaks back in English. In fact, I probably wouldn't understand if they didn't, but this way it's hard to ever learn. So I just keep asking my colleages how to say things, I keep listening to their conversations (not understanding it) and hope that one day I'll be able to speak Lebanese. Unfortunately that has to be one of the mere 75 days that I'm here.

To the east - again

2009-05-31T15:04:00.002+02:00

So here I am, at London Heathrow, on my way to the east again. But this time I'm not going to the far-, but the Middle East. And I'm not going after studying the language and culture for two years and going there on holiday for a month (like when I went to Waseda University in Tokyo) but after only studying the language for one year. So I'm a bit more nervous than last time. Will my Arabic be good enough? Will I be able to navigate through all the cultural, sectarian and ethnical intricacies? Will I do well at my job as financial analyst?
Time will tell, but I'm sure that I'll learn a lot, meet great people and probably fall in love with yet another country. You'll read all about it on this blog.

Columbia Heights' diversity

2009-05-20T22:35:00.006+02:00

I've been living in Columbia Heights for about one and a half months now, and I discover more and more great places there. Apparently it is a newly developed neighborhood, which means it was mired in poverty and violence not that long ago. Now, new retail-centers and apartments spring up everywhere, attracting all kinds of people for both shopping and living. This, however, results in so-called gentrification: white people moving into a predominantly black (or latino) neighborhood, bringing down the poverty rate and driving up the rent. So poor people might have to leave to cheaper areas further away while old, small townhouses are replaced by big, new apartment-buildings. So slowly it seems Columbia Heights is being transformed from a more historic residential area into a modern shopping district.
But that doesn't mean that there's no authenticity or originality anymore. In fact, creativity is right around the corner. First of all, the All-Souls Unitarian Church one block away is an, in my eyes, original institution combining a wide range of religious influences. Started in 1821, it still welcomes people of all kinds of religions to unite in worship (even though it seems to emphasize mono-theism). Furthermore, there are many art-institutions. There is the Art+Media House of the Latin American Youth Center, where teenagers express there creativity through paintings, drawings, murals, video's, music etc. Another center offering art-programs to youth is the Sitar arts -center, focusing on visual and performing arts. On the other side of the street, there's Hinckley Pottery, a center where people can take pottery classes to learn great skills. A while ago me and Chloe went there while they were selling work of their students, and it included some great works in Japanese, European and other styles - so we had to take some of it home!
Another great artistic outlet next-door is the drum-circle that takes place every sunday in Meridian Hill park. All kinds of different people with and without drums of all kinds come to the park to play, dance, hang around, juggle and just have a great time together. A great mix of cultures, ethnicities, generations and nationalities.
Other assests of the area are great restaurants, including the best pizzeria I have found in DC so far, Red Brick Pi zz a . The have delicious pizza's, a beautifull outdoor terrace, nice wines and great service. On the same street there's the most cozy and diverse bar with dancefloor Wonderland Ballroom, with both nice beers (among others Delirium Tremens) and a great - although somewhat populistic - DJ. So no reason to be bored in Columbia Heights!

Business [language]

2009-04-28T18:08:00.002+02:00

I just had my last class of Business Arabic. It's very strange that this important (time-consuming) aspect of my study now all of a sudden disappears. Like it was strange to just study Political Science during my last year at Leiden University.
It was great to have the opportunity to be challenged by a high-level applied language course, learn a lot of useful vocabulary and learn about (business) practices in different countries. I think that it's very important to study the application of a language in real-life in order to get a good grip of what the language is all about. Just studying grammer and vocabulary doesn't do it for me. The plans of Prof. Esseesy, head of the Arabic department and my professor for the past semester, to launch applied Arabic courses tied to a certain class such as International Affairs or Security Policy sound like a great idea to me. This approach is the most important difference between my experience here at the George Washington University and in Leiden. In Leiden, it seems like the professors ask: What can the student do that will benefit academics? while at GWU, they ask: What can academics do that will benefit the student?
Because I don't aspire an academic carreer, the last approach appeals more to me: how can academics be used to contribute to the personal developement of students? While it is important to invest in academic research, because only a small portion of university students end up in academic careers, I don't think the general focus of a curriculum should be research. Instead, it should be to offer a wide range of opportunities to gain insight in a specific field of study, combining several disciplines, languages and educational methods. Combining those aspects in one class - such as Business [language] - sounds like an great idea to me. Therefore, I hope that the Japanese department at Leiden will one day re-establish their course in Business Japanese - or Political Science Japanese, or Anthropological Japanese. I was lucky enough to take a course about Japanese Fascism with Prof. E. Mark in my last year of Japanese studies. There we used Japanese texts to study the political and military environment in Japan during the Second World War. This not only offered new insights in the field - Japanese scholars tend to have a different view on the subject, in fact, they are more prone to call the WWII regime in Japan fascist than many western historians - but also forced me to read academic Japanese, learn new vocabulary etc. It connects the language to a real-life situation.
I'm very much looking forward to applying Arabic in the real-life situation of Al Majmoua. In the end, the only way to really learn a language is to live in a country where it is spoken. So that's what I'm going to do.

Spring in Session

2009-04-22T00:04:00.004+02:00

So, it seems to be spring already for about a month, but I must say it doesn't really feel like it here in DC. Even though one day the weather seems great, the next day it's horrible. Right now, I can hear the thunder and rain is pouring down. And of course, the weather is great when I have to work, while it's horrible when I could use some sunshine.
During one of the moments when I did get a breath of fresh air the last few weeks I visited the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin. Very touristic, but I must admit it did provide a beautiful surrounding for the Jefferson Memorial (see picture) and the Roosevelt memorial. I also enjoyed the visit of Jasper Claessen (my reverred friend from the Vechtdal College in Hardenberg who is now getting his PhD at the MIT) combined with an Easter celebration with a lot of friends and Chloe's family. But apart from such happenings I've been mainly working on school, SIFE - and moving to my new place!
Yes, once again I moved, this time to live with Chloe in her - our - appartment at Columbia Heights. It all happened on Saturday April 4th. Now I live a bit further away from downtown and campus, but it's a more 'hood'-like neighborhood, a great appartment and low costs. Can't complain! And of course a girlfriend to complete the package! I was hanging around at her place so much already that the difference doesn't seem that significant, but it's a great experience until now.
And next to her appartment, I also invaded her workplace. I got the opportunity to volunteer with Ashoka as an Award Writer to write nominations for Ashoka fellows Joseph Adelegan and Ursula Sladek for certain awards that would support their initiatives. It was great to get to know more about them and get an insider's view of Ashoka. They support a large number of great fellows all around the world. However, instead of offering support, I think I'd rather do something myself. But there is a lot to learn and a lot to discover out there. It was just a short volunteer-job, so I'm already done, and now I can focus on...finals!
Yes, finals are coming up again, but luckily I don't have that much to worry about: a relatively short project for Business Arabic (I'll probably translate the website of Al Majmoua), a take-home exam for International Political Economy, and a normal exam for International Macroeconomics and Finance and for Financial Management. Oh, and a paper for Negotiation Skills, a class that took up my whole last weekend. It was fun, but time consuming, and of course it deprived me of any chance to enjoy the few days of nice weather we have here.

Some while ago, when I realized that the semester was almost over, I also realized that this one (academic) year at GW seems to have gone by even more quickly than a semester in Leiden or Tokyo. It has been a great, crazy experience, and I'm happy I have one more year to run around DC, discovering the nightlife, nature, NGO's, national heritage, my next employer and new friends. And looking back on the last few months, I have done a great amount of things that where on my to-do list for a while now:
- Live in the USA
- See New York
- Find a girlfriend who shares (almost) every interest
- Learn Arabic
- Establish my own organization
- Set up community projects
- Study economics
- Learn about Finance and financial management (I even already learned some things about investment banking, but that was just a weekend-crash-course)
- Get an internship in finance
- Learn more about microfinance (okay, that will happen this summer, but I already took care of it)
- Arrange a trip to the Middle East (a region where I haven't been yet)
- Learn negotiation skills
- Play basketball on a street-court in the US (even though it was just with 12-year old kids)
- Campaign for Obama
- Attend his inauguration

Not a bad score for one year. I'm curious what summer and next semester will bring!

Studying Arabic

2009-04-01T03:35:00.008+02:00

Now I’ve been studying Arabic for almost two semesters, and I must say it’s still not an easy language. But at least it has an alphabet with just 28 letters, instead of the thousands of characters in Japanese. The pronunciation of Arabic, on the other hand, is much more difficult than Japanese, even though it’s fun to produce sounds that I never thought I could produce.

But such technicalities are not the main reason why I wanted to learn the language. I wanted to know more about that huge region and all those people and all those religions and cultures that are so often and simplistically referred to as “Arabic”. Among others the many people from that region who now live in the Netherlands and France made me curious about their background and their history. Taking a course in Business Arabic instead of Intensive Elementary Arabic 2 (which would be more appropriate for my level) enabled me to learn about Islamic banking, traffic laws, employment, tourism and technology in the region. Reading texts about the different countries, I became more aware of the many differences and practical implications of local customs, religious norms and national policies.

Of course, in order to really learn about the countries, the people and the economic, political, social and cultural situation I'll have to go there. And even then I'll still see only one small part of the region. Initially I was very interested in Northern Africa, because many people who now live in Europe come from that region. But the rapid economic development of the United Arab Emirates also made me curious about those states, and at the same time I met several people from Lebanon here and heard great stories about Beirut.

So I had to find a way to go there - for a longer period of time and while doing something usefull, like taking classes in Arabic or - even better - work on my skills in financial analysis. I ended up applying for internships at microfinance organizations in the Middle East/North African (MENA) region. I received feedback from maybe a dozen of them, and a few where interested in having me over for the summer. Al Majmoua, a microfinance organization in Lebanon that was one of the first that responded, eventually offered me an internship as Junior Financial Analyst at their head-office in Beirut, where I will work on Activity Based Costing, historical ratio analysis, the development of new financial services and research on islamic banking (among others).

I still can't believe it's really going to happen.

What I heard from my friends, Beirut must be an amazing city, and Lebanon must be a beautiful country. It will be the first time I visit the Middle East, so I think visiting any place there would be a totally new and amazing experience, but to think that I'll go to one of the most beautiful countries in the region where my friends are from is very exciting.

At the same time, I don't really know what to expect: how will people treat me? Will I be able to speak Arabic at all? What will it be like to work for a microfinance organization? Will I have an opportunity to meet their clients? What is it like to live in Lebanon? I think I will learn a lot, about daily life, harsh reality, beautiful surroundings, social engagement, economic development, financial empowerment, history, politics, ideologies and many more things I can't even think about now. It will be a whole different world, and I am grateful that I can now learn the language that will enable me to step into that world.

Starting a new SIFE Team

2009-03-17T03:54:00.005+01:00

After referring to it a few times before, I'll finally tell you some more about my experiences setting up a new team of Students in Free Enterprise at George Washington University. SIFE GWU is a student driven organization that strives to make a difference in the local and global community through stimulating, implementing, and teaching the principles of free enterprise. It is a chapter of the international organization Students In Free Enterprise that is active in 40 countries.
Actually, I wrote the following post for a newsletter of SIFE the Netherlands, but it covers pretty much I would have written here anyway.

It all started with an information-meeting of GWU’s Global Language Network, where I was supposed to volunteer as a Dutch teacher. However, I decided that instead of teaching, I’d rather set up a new SIFE team that would implement projects to support small enterprises for years to come.

Of course I ran into all kinds of bureaucratic procedures that I had to go through, but in general the support for studentorgs is well organized here, for example with an online-tool to create our own website (see www.sifegwu.org). A bigger challenge was to get people motivated to get on the team, actively contribute to the organization and stay on the team. Of the twelve people who initially showed interest in SIFE GWU, only five are still active now! The biggest problem is that many students here are so eager to build up a lengthy resume that they rather engage in a time-consuming internship (even unpaid ones) than in a student organization. The job market here in DC is just so competitive that many people think you won’t make it without numerous internships under your belt.

On the other hand, we have just recruited eight new members and they seem to be very motivated. Our team consists of a nice mix of American and international students, graduate and undergraduate and business and international affairs students. We are working on three projects now, one to help artists in Washington, DC to market their art, one to teach children how to sell the crops of their school’s vegetable gardens at a local market in DC and one to set up a network of tourist guides in Mexico City who will show their own barrio to tourists. It is hard to get everything going and to get people involved into something that they don’t know much about, but I think we have a great team, some good ideas and very capable support. I just had a meeting with a professor at George Mason University who is also a consultant in International Finance. She is willing to be part of our Business Advisory Board. So are an alumnus of the ITIP program who is now working on project monitoring and evaluation for Africa at USAID and an ITIP alumna who works on small business support in China.

Next to the fact that I now have the opportunity to shape a new SIFE team and help students turn their project proposals into reality, I am very excited about the professional approach of students and faculty here in DC. The Elliott School, and of course the business school, takes a much more hands-on approach than Leiden University. Students are very eager to look outside of the academic environment and work on something that will have an impact on society. As long as their eagerness to get into the Department of State doesn’t interfere with this, SIFE GWU can respond to this demand and really add something to the university and its students.

My light...

2009-03-09T20:01:00.004+01:00

So it's been already three months since my last update! And indeed, this semester has been crazy, I've been working on my courses, SIFE GWU (www.sifegwu.org), Arabic and trying to find an internship this summer, and it has all kept me busy as always. More about that in a next post, for now I want to tell about the most important thing that has made this semester very special: my girlfriend.
We've already been together since October, but it has been developing into something more and more special over the months. Actually, it became clear pretty soon that we're made for each other - there's almost nothing we're not both interested in, ranging from development economics and buddhism to good vegetarian food and hip-hop. I never thought I would run into such a great person!
But luckily I did, so we spend more and more time together, and in April I will even move in with her! Well, I'm at her appartment most of the time anyway, so it won't be such a big difference, but of course it's still a big step. But I'm confident that it will be great: coming home to find her there, or being there when she gets back from work, cooking together, listening to music together, waking up together...
Chloe (my girlfriend) currently works at Ashoka, an NGO that stimulates social entrepreneurship, to set up a low-cost healthservice franchise. The first pilot should be launched in India in the next few months. She also studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs, like me, and that's where I met her. However, she studies International Science and Technology Policy and she'll be done in May - lucky girl - and will then start working full-time at Ashoka. Right now she's in Kenya with three classmates for her capstone (final) project, evaluating the use of diagnostic software at the Kenyan Ministry of Health - lucky girl! She is focussing on the perception of usefulness and ease of use of the software. So in the meanwhile I'm just studying for my midterms, and once they're over on Wednesday I'll work on my Arabic, because that's never good enough... I can't wait until she comes back on March 21st!

We're all living in America

2009-01-10T03:22:00.005+01:00

After my parents and my sister visited me, it seems like a good time to evaluate my experiences here in the US. Like my parents, I came to this country with certain assumptions to and as happened to my parents, some assumptions where confirmed while I had to adjust others. To Americans, such assumptions might seem blatant generalizations that are not at all based on reality, but to many Europeans, only a very general or even typical image of Americans emerges from most media reports of this country.
Even though I can only speak based upon my experiences in Washington DC, New York, Boston and Columbus Ohio, so far my findings are that:

- America doesn't offer only fast food. Actually, I can find more vegetarian and/or organic restaurants in DC (but certainly in NY) than in Amsterdam.
- Not all Americans are fat. In fact, many Americans take great care to stay healthy.
- Americans are not all uncritical patriots. In fact, many (or most?) don't support the war in Iraq and a very large majority is nowadays merciless towards Wall Street banks and Detroit car-producers.
- The enthousiasm of Americans is not just an exaggerated, superficial expression of interest. Actually, many Americans are not as overly enthousiastic as often portrayed and I believe most really mean it. I guess to us cold, unengaged Dutch it seems exaggerated, but in fact I think it's a nice way to interact.

Some assumptions that seem to be confirmed are:
- Everything in the US is big: the cars, the streets, the buildings, the hamburgers, the cups of coffee. I always order the smalles size and in most cases that's a substantial meal or beverage. And sometimes I'm still surprised to see a 6-lane street run right through the city filled with SUV's and pick-up trucks big enough to house a Chinese family.
- Success is measured by wealth. It's very important to have a big, new car. It's very important to have a big house. It's very important to have expensive jewellery. Or at least so it seems when I look around on the streets and in magazine ads. And I believe that's what made many Americans take on debt that they counldn't pay off once the interest rates increased...
- War is not necessarily seen as bad. While most European countries (and especially Japan) revolt at any military operation abroad, Obama can only broker a reduction of troops in Iraq if he increases American presence in Afghanistan.

This is actually one of the most striking insights I got while I was here (or maybe not insight, but rather gut-feeling): even though many Americans don't believe in the flimsy excuses used by the Bush-administration to invade Iraq, they do believe that their army is doing good work there - and in Afghanistan. The conviction that the intention of most soldiers are good also musters support for those serving their country, even among those critical of the war effort. And while this good intention might be true for the individuals, often I doubt the intentions of the US Department of Defense as a whole (see the documentary Why we fight).
I can't suppress the feeling that most US citizens don't understand the real atrocities of war because the US has never experienced a modern full-scale war on it's own territory. War is always ugly - Abu Ghraib is not an exception, but rather the rule. If your job is to kill or be killed, you have to become numb to 'normal' human morals. You can blame American soldiers for that as little as you can blame German or Japanese fascists for it (see for example the documentary Japanese Devils). So as long as people don't realize what the real burden of war is, what death, destruction and mutilation look like, they can support any war waged in the name of freedom, democracy or some other abstract notion that won't bring anybody back to life.

Holiday Season

2008-12-24T03:22:00.004+01:00

And then Thanksgiving came, I had final exams, the exams were over and my parents arrived in DC. I still can't believe how fast this semester has passed. Let me give an overview of what you've missed the past month while I was too busy (or too lazy) to update my blog.
Thanksgiving with my friend Jasper in Boston was a lot of fun. While most Americans have stuffed turkey on the last Thursday of November, the vegetarians can fill their stomach with something called Tofurkey (yes, a tofy-immitation of turkey, even though I'm sure it doesn't get close). And while being in Boston, of course I had to go to a Boston Celtics game. Quite a difference, to go from the last team in the Eastern Conference (the Washington Wizards) to the number one - oh, and of course they won the game.
Another highlight of that trip was a visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, arguably the best science and technology institute on the planet, where Jasper is getting his PhD at the moment. Just imagine, being paid to continue being a student, while you can play around with the best research equipment you can get. It showed that Jasper was having a lot of fun there, and I was happy to contribute to his very important research by making sure that his cells would not grow out of their petri-dishes.
Back in DC I had to sort of focus on my final exams that would start soon, but I was also setting up a new Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team at the George Washington University. I managed to get it officially recognized by the Student Activity Center, so that took me some time as well. SIFE is basically a student organization that stimulates entrepreneurship through the transfer of knowledge and in cooperation with the business community. We still have to make sure that the business community wants to cooperate with us, but I'm sure we'll get some back-up sooner or later. Right now we've got nine students and a faculty member devoting their time to SIFE GWU, but from next semester I hope to increase that number to 20 or 30.
The last couple of weeks I could also attend some interesting events. It was especially interesting to hear Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, announce his proposals for the Obama administration regarding technological innovation. Not surprisingly, he pressed for the expansion of the broadband network so that all Americans could take part in the www-community (and become his clients). The similar view was repeated later at the Google office during a talk about technological innovation through information technology, full coverage of which can be seen on YouTube.
Another talk hosted by the Washington International Trade Association featured Bernard Hoekman (yes, a Dutchy), the head of the International Trade department of the World Bank. According to him, international trade will see a dramatic decline in the short run (the first decline since 1982, as you probably know), but will increase again in one or two years. And developing countries are not in such big trouble because they weren't integrated in the international financial system anyway. Not having much money can turn out to have some advantages after all. Oh, and the CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Mr. Robert Mosbacher Jr. honoured the Consulting Club of GW with a visit and talked about OPIC in an informal setting. Quite amazing to hear how OPIC had funded a power-plant on the Gaza strip and had to contact Israeli defense forces to prevent it from being bombed to boulders.
And in the meanwhile I had to make sure that I would pass my exams. As during the mid-terms, many students showed great dedication, forming study-groups, doing exams from previous years, solving problems to practice etc. so there was no lack of study-opportunities. It helped that I had one take-home exam and one exam that would contain 4 questions of a list of 30 that was announced beforehand. For my econ-classes (Econometrics, Trade Theory and History of Trade System) this resulted in an A-, A- and A (that's not that bad for American standards). I'm still waiting for the results of my Arabic class, but I'm not worried about that.
So what's up next? First of all, I'm going to enjoy the holidays with my parents and sister. They should all have arrived by now, but the plane that should have taken Marieke from Berlin to London seemed to have some engine failure (luckily they noticed before take-off) so she's spending the night in London and will arrive in DC tomorrow. I'm sure we'll have a great time all the same.

The first black president

2008-11-17T23:52:00.003+01:00

So we won. After all the campaigning, uncertainty, waiting and early voting it seemed that, once it was all over, the campaign was just some dream. And in a way, I still can't believe Obama is really going to be the next president of the USA. I guess it will take until his inauguration before I am truly convinced about this historic fact.
For historic it is. Because of the change that really is necessary - a different defense policy, a different economic policy, a different energy-policy, a different foreign relations policy - but I guess most of all because of the fact that Obama is not white. That's a very great and a very sad thing at the same time. Why is it so special that the US citizens elect a black president? I heard a comment that "this is finally the end of the master-slave relationship", finally a black man can rule the country. Many people say that Obama is an example of black emancipation, showing that minorities can really be successful. But to me it sounds almost like an excuse. Just looking around me at university makes it clear that Caucasians still get a higher education, live in better neighborhoods, earn more money and have higher positions. Obama is an extraordinary exception, and that's why it's so special.
And at the same time, ethnical/racial differences seem to be more accepted here than in Europe. A while ago I saw some documentary on Muslims in the UK and in Spain. This movie, "The other threat" shows how many Europeans just don't want to accept Muslims into their society, even if they perfectly adapt. I think the situation in the Netherlands is very similar, but at the same time racial differences really don't matter. To me it's strange to ask someone for his/her racial background, but here in the US it's not uncommon to see such questions on official (application) documents. It seems that here in the US, the racial background of people does matter, but the differences are regarded as an inherent characteristic of this immigrant's society. Because everybody is different, the differences seem to be regarded with less suspicion. At the same time, there seems to be more segregation here than in Europe. In the Netherlands there are also black neighborhoods, black schools and black bars, but that's rather the exception than the rule. Here, it seems to be the inverse. Lately I was at a bar in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in DC, but the bar was mainly filled with Caucasian youth.
But the differences really struck me when I saw the differences between downtown DC and some residential neighborhoods, or downtown New York and Queens and Harlem. The big, beautiful, expensive office buildings, fashion boutiques and upscale restaurants seem to be reserved for rich white people, while the biggest part of the black population lives in ugly, old apartment buildings, working as cleaners and security guards and eating in Chinese take-out restaurants. And at the same time everybody is chasing that American dream: to work, earn money and become successful. At least Obama made it. And while there seems to be much inequality here, most people come to the United States because of its many opportunities. So I guess it's not perfect, but still a lot better than most other countries.

No more midterms, get ready for the real test

2008-10-31T18:38:00.002+01:00

I just finished my second and last mid-term (econometrics, wasn't all that hard) and before I will submerge in the craziness of an American Halloween-celebration (everybody's telling me it's going to be incredible) I'm trying to update this blog. Of course it's important for me to get good results on those midterms, but what's much more important is the outcome of the elections that will take place on Tuesday. I can't believe that it will take place in just a few days, and to be honest, I'm more than just slightly worried about the results. Not because of the polls, the campaign-strategy of Obama or the counter-attack of McCain (the best he came up with was recruiting Joe the Plumber as a speaker on his rallies!). The procedures people have to go through before they can cast their ballots, however, does seem to be a serious obstacle in free and fair elections.
First of all, many voter registration are declared not valid because of inconsistencies between the data on the voter-registration form and the records of the local government. As a results, officials have denied hundreds of thousands of people the right to vote, and in some states these decisions are contested in court (see for example the Washington Post). On the other hand, voter-registration campaigns of Acorn have led to fraudulent voter registration. And once a voter is properly registered, it's still quite hard to vote. On election day, people might have to wait for hours standing in the line before they can vote. In the Netherlands, I never had to wait more than five minutes before I could cast my ballot. And I asked my Russian friend, and she said voting was much easier in her country as well. If people do take the effort to go to the polls (which are only open until 7pm on a working day (!), at least, in Virginia) and make it to the voting booth, a complicated ballot or malfunctioning voting machines makes it difficult to cast a valid vote. And those are just the procedural irregularities that might prevent votes from being count (see the financial times for more details). It is possible to vote early, actually, about a third of the electorate has done so, but even at the early-voting polls, waiting times are very long.
But I've heard more unsettling stories. It appears that some voting districts are provided too few ballots or voting machines, making waiting times even longer or voting outright impossible. I even heard people are intimidated to make them vote for a certain candidate.
To make sure as many votes as possible do make it to the ballot box, the democrats are pushing for a final battle throughout the US. In Virginia, volunteers are campaigning every day all day, and on election day in just one small district some 200 volunteers will be mobilized to get people to the polls, in the waiting line and in the voting booth. They even provide umbrella's and hot cocoa in case cold weather or rain will keep people at home.
Apparently, it's what it takes to stand a chance in the elections in the US. That suggests that they aren't as free and fair as they should be. And while everyone recognizes these problems, little is done to change it. Apparently those in power benefit from the present system. Let's hope the American population can turn the tide and make change possible.

Midnight Pumpkin Spice @ Gelman

2008-10-24T06:27:00.003+02:00

I hope you find my posts about campaigning, the economic crisis etc. interesting, but what I actually came to the US for is of course studying. And I am doing that a lot here. When the semester started, I didn't consider the level of the courses very high or the material very difficult, but now I have to admit that classes over here are not exactly what I was used to in the Netherlands. And that's good, because otherwise I could just as well have stayed in Europe.
The biggest difference to me is what teachers expect from students. In the Netherlands, that's not very much. There teachers only hope that students will come to class and study hard for the exam. Here teachers expect that students come to class, study for the exam, hand in homework, learn for quizzes, prepare presentations, ask questions during class, come to office hours to ask more questions, send e-mails about the material etc. If you don't do such things, you're not seriously studying. And students do make an effort to do well in class, on tests and on homework assignments. In order to make things easier and more bearable, they meet in groups to study, work on examples of exams or solve questions for homework. The main reason for this great difference in dedication between Dutch and American students is probably the tuition fee: if you pay $24000,- (or get a grant of that amount) to be able to go to university, you better make the most of your time there. So the high price of education at GW certainly has some positive effects, and it shows that 'putting a price' on everything can stimulate people to perform better. And here, people really express everything in money. Some while ago we were talking about human rights in class, and one student argued that it's easier to provide some human rights as compared to others because they don't cost any money (such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly etc. as opposed to the right to healthcare, housing, food etc). To me, putting a price on human rights sounded blasphemous, but I guess it's a reality governments all over the world have to deal with.
Anyway, to give an impression of my academic efforts here: this morning I was working on some pages of econometrics-problems with two other guys, and this weekend we'll meet again to study for the two mid-term exams we have next week. Because I have to hand in homework for my Arabic classes every day and learn for quizzes and tests in that language about twice a week, I decided to spend my evenings at the Gelman library (the biggest library of GW University, open 24/7) and try to figure out what I (should) have learned the last few weeks. Luckily the only Starbucks in DC that's open 24 hours a day is right next to this library, and in the current Halloween spirit they serve great Pumpkin-Spice Frappuccino's there. So my first study-night was quite pleasant and productive. Let's hope I can keep it that way until Friday the 30th, when I have my last mid-term and when I have to get ready for Halloween (better find myself some costume...)

おはようOhio! (Good Morning Ohio!)

2008-10-23T22:52:00.004+02:00

Just today I noticed that, according to Real Clear Politics (see links), Ohio is leaning towards Obama! Regarding the importance of Ohio, a state with 20 votes in the Electoral College, this is great news. To turn Ohio 'blue' takes a lot of effort: it's a big state with many republicans, but I can assure you: the democrats are working day and night to make sure that democrats will actually cast their ballot to elect Obama.
Two weeks ago, on Friday the 3rd, I joined the GW College Democrats to Columbus, Ohio, to campaign there myself. Two busses filled with students from four Universities (GW, Georgetown, American University and Catholic University) drove for 8 hours from the Eastcoast to the American Heartland. My first glimpse of the US outside of DC and Northern Virginia. Just the drive was a great experience to me. Travelling for such a long time, just cruising through forests and small villages was like nothing I had ever seen. In Holland, you can't travel for longer than an hour before you get to some big city, and in 8 hours you can easily traverse three countries. Our accomodation in Columbus was very much in line with the democratic constituency: the union of Plumbers and Pipefitters offered their union hall to us for the weekend (didn't see Joe though). So we took our blankets or sleeping bags from our luggage and created a place to sleep for the next two nights.
On Saturday we went campaigning in the suburbs of Columbus. The transportation wasn't organized very efficiently, so after riding from restaurant to some park to the field office of the Obama campaign we were on the streets talking to people for just an hour. It was nice to see that the field office, one of those important outposts from where voters have to be mobilized, was somewhere on a deserted industrial/warehouse complex in a small, old building. There they composed the lists we used to visit people in the suburbs, there they organized activities, from there they distributed posters and yardsigns and from there they brought us to the suburbs where we knocked on doors and talked to people.
That evening I saw how much American Football means for the inhabitants of Columbus. The college team of the Ohio State University was playing and many, many students went to see the match in the stadium or somewhere on the street or in a bar where many screens were set up to attract customers. We didn't get into the stadium, but we watched it outside between all the supporters, dressed in the white and red of the Bucketeers (the team of Ohio State University). However, at the campaign office of the College Democrats of Ohio State University some dedicated students were still preparing the campaign of the next days and weeks. After the match, the supporters celebrated the victory of their team at student houses, bars, the streets - basically everywere in Columbus people were drinking and having fun. So we joined them until we had to take the bus back to our five-star Plumbers and Pipefitters Union hall.
The next day we went campaigning around the university. The dedication of the College Democrats clearly paid off: everybody had a long list of houses to go to in order to mobilize students (an important group of democrats in Ohio). So I went up and down stairs, around houses, into hallways and to verandas to be sure to reach every house, appartment, room and basement where a student could live on 'my' street. It was great to see that students who just woke up, had their girlfriend on the phone, were watching sports or seemed uninterested in politics still took some time to talk to me. Of course, some refused to waste their time, but others appreciated my efforts. One guy (not a students) told me that he had just lost his job and that his father worked in a plant were tanks were assembled, so he was depending on the war in Irak to make a living. Another eyeopener was the amount of houses that were for rent, houses were people had moved out because they couldn't pay their mortgages. In Ohio the impact of the economic crisis are much more apparent than in DC. So even though Columbus doesn't have a White House, a Capitol, many museums or other attractions, it showed me how most Americans live their life and experience the economic crisis, the elections, sports and politics.

What's the deal?

2008-10-07T06:15:00.007+02:00

It's so strange: all the time we hear how bad the economic crisis is and what a disaster could happen any moment from now, and still life goes on as if nothing changes. At least, for me and my fellow students at George Washington University. In other places in the US, for example in the mid-west, people already felt the economic downturn long ago when they couldn't afford their mortgage anymore. In that respect, it's also strange that rescue is only offered once big corporations ask for it. I'm convinced that the €700 billion bailout is necessary to safeguard the deposits, investments, retirement funds and access to capital of millions of people in the US and worldwide, but it's striking that it's only offered now, and not when people started defaulting on their loans. Now, banks are compensated for the huge, massive-scale mistakes they made, while this whole crisis might have been contained if consumers would have been compensated long ago (when the house-market started to crumble) for their overstretched mortgages. Now we all have to pray the bailout will actually have the desired effect. It seems that traders on Wall Street aren't convinced, regarding the 300-point decrease below the 10.000 points, for the first time in four years. In the meanwhile politicians keep seizing this historic moment to rally support for their (in)action and create adversity against their enemies: senators pound their chests saying how great it is that they actually passed this bill (did they really have a choice?), McCain and Palin keep attacking the democrats on any topic they can come up with - and they don't seem all too creative - and Obama calls McCain 'out of touch' with the present economic situation. He might be, but who actually really understands what is going on? One of my professors at GW said she just doesn't know how all this will work out, and when a correspondent from the Financial Times came to our classroom after spending the whole day on Capitol Hill, not much of our confusion was clarified.
And I'm getting more and more confused. Trying to keep track of the ownership of the Dutch part of ABN AMRO, I couldn't believe what I heard when I found out that the Dutch Minister of Finance Wouter Bos actually bought the Dutch part of both ABN and Fortis! As if nationalizing one of the biggest bank/insurance companies of the country is something you can do in a few days (cause that's how much time it took to close the deal). Even more unsettling was the fact that the Volkskrant (a nationwide newspaper in the Netherlands) called this his Glorious Week. Now let's get some things straight: he was the one who could have stopped Fortis from taking over ABN AMRO, and now they say he's succesfull when he buys 'back' ABN AMRO, completely stripped of its international network by Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander? And while he claims that he acquired the 'healthy' part of ABN AMRO and Fortis, I sincerely doubt is judgement after he considered the takeover of ABN AMRO not harmfull for the Dutch economy and refused to veto it. Now he has to spend some 20 billion dollars on a slice of what used to be Netherland's biggest bank and a part of the Belgian banker/insurance company Fortis, while some departments have already been split off for sale to other parties (Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas) and others are halfway some seperation/intergration process that is now more and more looking like McCains healthcare plan (according to Biden 'the ultimate bridge to nowhere'). Yeah, I'm sure Bos did a great purchase.
When looking at the data I found out something interesting: the $700 bailout in the US represents about 5% of the American GDP (of 2007). No wonder that both Senate and Congress wanted to have their say and make sure the bailout would be in the best interest of the American people. Since most will be spend on non-performing American loans, the biggest part of the bailout will be directly injected into the US economy.
The takeover of ABN/Fortis cost the Dutch state some 3% of its GDP of 2007, so that's also a considerable amount. I haven't followed the news very closely all the time, but judging by the speed at which the deal was closed, I don't think the Dutch parliament really had a chance to look at the details. And the money didn't even go to Dutch taxpayers: it was paid to the owners of the company, the Belgian Fortis Group, the French BNP Paribas and the Belgian state. Three percent of the Dutch GDP out of the country, just like that. As a comparison: the Netherlands spend about 0.7% of its GDP on development assistance. Bos probably assumes he will be able to sell the bank/insurer with a considerable profit, but as I said, I'm not so sure about his economic insight anymore. What a democracy we live in!

On the move

2008-09-23T08:17:00.007+02:00

Even though a new week of studying has already started, I should first tell about how I ended the last one. After handing in a homework assignment for econometrics and doing a test for Arabic on Friday, I was happy to go to Jazz in the Garden, a free open-air jazz-concert in the sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Art. Starting around 5pm, this event attracted all kinds of people, many of whom brought some snacks and drinks to enjoy the music, the weather, the nice athmosphere and of course the beginning of the weekend. It was great to hang around there while friends and friends of friends who brought more friends (and food and drinks) came along to start off the evening. When the concert was over and most people were gone - around 8pm, we decided to go to some party at the rooftop of an appartment building right next to the Capitol. While the DJ was playing hip-hop tracks we had a great view of the capital and the rest of DC. However, DC doesn't really have an impressive skyline like NY or Tokyo, because the buildings can't be higher than the Capitol.
The next day I had to get up early to go to Vienna, Virginia again to campaign for Obama! This time it wasn't as hot and it seemed more people were at home (or answered the door), so I had some interesting conversations. The most remarkable was a man who first indicated that he was still undecided and mostly voted republican, but after talking to him for a while he said he'd probably vote for Obama! He even showed admiration for my efforts and encouraged me to 'go knock on some more doors', which of course I did. In the end I had visited some 50 houses and talked to some 20 people. And Obama is leading the polls again, so let's hope it's going to work out!
On Sunday I had the strange experience of packing my bags again in less then a month, because I moved to a new place. After putting up with taking the metro to university every day, having police cars and helicopters inspecting the neighborhood frequently and all kinds of insects invading the kitchen, I decided I should move to a cleaner house in a nicer neighborhood closer to unversity. So now I live more downtown, on the first floor of a house with 8 appartments sharing an appartment with one other guy (my room is right above the door). It's also in a 'mixed' neighborhood, but here you can find all kinds of shops, bars, restaurants and street vendors. So instead of a boring residential area I'm now surrounded by some of the best venues in DC, including Black Cat, where all kind of concerts take place, Utopia, where jazz-concerts accompany the food, Whole Foods, a big supermarket with only organic products and numerous other places along the famous U street. Maybe you can compare it to moving from the Bijlmer to Leidse Square in Amsterdam, so I'm very happy with my new home. And what makes it all the better is that my new housemate, an Italian employee of NASA working on a sattelite monitor climate change, can make the best pasta, fresh pesto, limoncello and probably a host of other Italian delicacies! So I won't starve here.

Getting out the vote

2008-09-15T05:01:00.006+02:00

The presidential elections are of course a hot topic and it's hard not to take sides. For me it's not hard to make up my mind about my favourite candidate though: a lot of things need to change in the way politics is done here in the U.S., and I think Barack Obama can make a difference. His focus on diplomacy instead of war, social security instead of big business, environment instead of oil and human rights instead of terrorism shows that he will make US (foreign) policy reasonable again, instead of based on unreasonable fear. And even though I can't vote myself, I can still try to convince people that they should vote for Obama. So last saturday I joined the GW College Democrats on a campaign-trip to Fairfax, a suburb of Washington located in the state Virginia. That state is still undecided (it's not clear whether Obama or McCain will win the elections there, see this map), so every democrat supporter there who will go to the ballot box can make a decisive contribution to Obama's victory. About 45 students were willing to wake up early that saturday and take a metro to its last stop, Vienna. There, we were told how to go 'canvassing' and we split up in groups, one for every neighbourhood. Each of us had a list of about 50 names and adresses of people who still hadn't decided who to vote for. We went to their houses, knocked on their doors and tried to get them to vote for Obama. That wasn't an easy task. First of all, most people weren't at home. In that case, we could leave a brochure. But when we got to talk to people, it was hard to convince them in just a few minutes. But at least we showed how dedicated the democratic party is to 'get the vote out', and that even students were willing to spend their saturday walking the sun-burnt streets (it was about 33 degrees celcius, I guess) talking to strangers, just to make sure that the US and the world will face a better future. We'll probably go on such trips regularly the next few weeks, until the elections are on the 4th of november.
On sunday, I went out in the streets again despite the high temperature, this time to visit the Adam's Morgan Day-festival. Adam's Morgan is a nice neighborhood a bit north of down-town DC and for the festival some streets where closed for cars. Instead, there were many places to buy food, art, clothes, jewelery, craftwork, stages where music was played and basketball-courts where dances were performed. The most intriguing dance I saw was a group of (I assume) native americans who had bright purple costumes, dancing (or mainly jumping) to indian music with a loud house-beat. Not exactly what I had expected to see from native americans, but a clear indication that they still adapt their culture to changing circumstances. They also invited the audience to join them in the jump-style-dance on the indian-beat-music. Further down the street, people were dancing to salsa in a dancing contest. The high temperature didn't hold them back from giving all they got while a salsa-band provided live music. It was great to see people have so much fun on a spot where normally just cars are driving by. Then I went back home, though, because I decided to change my intermediate microeconomics course for econometrics. I wanted something more challenging, and econometrics certainly requires some time before I completely understand it, so I'm afraid now I really have to start focussing on my studies.

New languages, new discussions

2008-09-07T21:56:00.004+02:00

Last tuesday classes started, so now I'm enjoying my first weekend after a regular week of going to the university, studying and meeting friends. Until now, classes haven't been too demanding, so I don't have to study all day and night. Actually, many of my fellow students also work part- or full time, so for me it's not too hard, concentrating just on my courses. This also allows me to take some more courses than stictly necessary. Next to the two mandatory courses History of the International Trade System and International Trade Theory and Policy, I'm also taking Intermediate Microeconomics and Intensive Elementary Arabic. And I must say, that last course is intensive! Instead of once a week, like the other courses, Arabic classes are every day. We have homework every day, so I'm regularly trying to learn the new writing and pronunciation. And I must say, it's great to learn a new language. I wanted to learn Arabic already for some while, and to really do that now is wonderful.
Like Arabic, economics can be seen as a language as well. Especially here it's seen as the most important factor in making policy-decisions and analyzing the results of any taken measure. So I'm happy that I get a chance to interact with many more people by learning to use those new languages. And while economics is basically about numbers and models, the teachers here are continuously stressing that it's just an imperfect model of reality. That reality is much more complex and that there will always be benefits and costs to any economic measure you might take. Actually, I'm relieved to hear that, because going to Washington I was afraid to hear nothing but the infamous Washington concensus: that countries should just practice free trade and that everybody will benefit from that. But academics do have a more nuanced view of how things work, and the Washington concensus had already been the subject of discussion for a long time. I'm looking forward to the discussions on economic theory we'll have in class!

Getting Started

2008-08-29T22:17:00.003+02:00

I'm here to study, and now I've already been taking in loads of new information. The last few days have been clogged with orientations, presentations, explorations, welcome receptions and get-togethers. First of all there were two days of international student orientation, then there's the Elliott School orientation, the International Trade and Investment orientation, the Career Development reception, the graduate students reception etc.
Some of the things I've learned are how difficult it is to keep track of your rights and duties as an alien resident in the US, the complicated and incredible system of health insurance, how many student- and academic organizations you can subscribe to and how many resources they have at the (24/7 open) library. They even have a Digital National Security Archive where you can find materials that used to be classified (for example about the Cuban Missile Crisis but even about the weapons of mass destruction-campaign waged by Bush and Powell). What most struck me is how serious they take career planning here in the US. There is an office at the Elliott School specially focussed on helping students to get nice internships and job opportunities. The infrastructure they set up for that ranges from regular networking-receptions to online job databases and from assistance in writing your resume to information from alumni about working conditions at certain employers. And of course they can't stress enough how great the location of the school is in terms of job opportunities: from the roof of the Elliott School you can see the Worldbank, IMF, the White House and the Congress and the State Department, Treasury Department, Chamber of Commerce and tens of other institutions are just a few blocks away. But the most interesting of the last few days were the people I met here. Especially at the Elliott School everybody seems to have done the greatest things: teaching two years in Tanzania, setting up their own business, doing consultancy for the IMF as an internship or working for the US Department of Defense. I'm really lucky to be surrounded by such nice, interesting and experienced people who bring on-the-ground experience into the classroom.
And classes will start next Tuesday already, so this weekend I'll lock myself up in the library to do the necessary readings and preparations so that I'll make a good start. And I just picked up my books for my Arabic course! I couldn't withstand the temptation to learn another freaky language, so after Japanese I'm going to dive into the Arabic script as well!
And next to all these academic preparations I also had to get a telephone, a health insurance, a bank account and a place to stay... Luckily I'd found a room by just calling a telephone number that was in an advertisement in the Washington Post. So now I'm sharing a house with four other people who also came to America from abroad (though not from Europe, they all came from Africa) in a modest, multi-cultural neighborhood about 4 miles from the GW University It's the house on the corner. I've got two small rooms upstairs and share the bathroom and kitchen. I've been commuting by metro up till now, but tomorrow I'll get myself a bike from a fellow student so that I can continue my Dutch habit of roaming the streets on two wheels.

Mixed Feelings

2008-08-25T12:49:00.004+02:00

So here I am, yesterday I arrived in Washington, DC! I've been through a lot of trouble, it has taken about a year of preparations and there have been many uncertainties, but finally I've arrived! And yet, I can't say I feel as euphoric as I expected. I've had a great summer and spent a magnificent time in Berlin, Belguim, Bolivia, Prague, Vienna, Croatia and Beerze, my hometown with friends and family and to leave all that behind isn't very easy. So I feel what we call in Dutch 'ontheemd', un-homed. I don't live in the Netherlands anymore, and I still don't have a place to stay here either. I won't see most of my friends for quite some time, but I don't know anybody here in DC. So when I walked the streets here yesterday, it felt like I wasn't really there. Like I was watching everything from a distance, as if it was a movie. But it's real, and I'll just have to deal with it.
Luckily, I've already had some encouragements from people I met on the plane, at the border security and in between. The guy sitting next to me on the plane worked in DC as a business consultant, and he said I'd have a great time here. Then there was a girl who'll study law at the George Washington University this year and who also had to take care of a lot of things, and while I was lining up for border security a guy from London told me about his cousin who lived here and that he could help me out if necessary. So those encounters were a nice experience to start with, but that doesn't make up for the friends and family, and especially my girlfriend, who I left behind in the Netherlands. My last day there was great: me and Rianne, my girl, went to the beach at Noordwijk and we enjoyed the Dutch shore, sun and sky. And I must say, Holland is very different from the US. While Leiden, where I studied, as all these nice little brick houses, what I've see of DC up till now is just big office and appartment buildings. Instead of small streets and squares they have big avenues and crossroads here. And everything is big: big buildings, wide streets, big cars, large distances and big people. I hope I'll fit in here with my skinny body.

Back from Bolivia

2008-07-26T21:50:00.004+02:00

After giving a workshop about turning tourism to money and Corporate Social Responsibility, we went to a 'peña' at some restaurant where three old men from Samaipata were playing guitar and accordeon singing traditional (or so I suppose) songs. It was a great atmosphere, so we enjoyed our beers and reflected on the things we had seen while we visited our (potential) projects. After that, we went to a local karaoke bar - which seems very popular there - and sang/danced the night away. We had to get up reasonably early the next day because me and two girls were going to walk around through the national reserve Amboró for about 6 hours. Munching away on some coca we didn't feel like we had been taking a lot of alcohol and just a little sleep though. We followed some small, almost invisible footpath for most of the day, and our guide told us he had made it some 6 months ago, so we were among the first to walk there!
After exploring the woods, we had to get into some taxi's again to go back to Santa Cruz. Once we got there, we played some basketball in the Parque Urbano next to our hostal and after that, some bad bacteria got to me and made me dead-sick that night. I couldn't remember feeling that bad since a long time, but the next day I could finally get some sleep and little by little I felt better again.
So luckily I could join the rest of the group on the 21st when they went to a university of CadeCruz where they were going to give another workshop about CSR, this time to the happy few who enjoyed an academic education. All spanish-speaking SIFE members (including me) had to lead a group of students while they were working on a test-case to make that as socially-responsible as possible. Our group worked on a supposed Levi's factory in Bolivia, and they came up with all kinds of measures, ranging from on-site water purification and re-use of disposed fabric to flexible working hours and procurement of ecologic cotton. I hope they will apply CSR in their future carreers.
The next day was already our last one in Bolivia, and we spent it visiting another potential project in the sub-urb La Guardia. There, a group of Iranian tapestry-producers (we didn't come up with this) is teaching women in the neighbourhood how they can produce their own high-quality tapistry. We could witness a gathering where about 80 of these women turned up who appeared to be the heads of local associations, so they would pass the message on to about 1000 other women. Quite some multiplyer! After this gathering, we enjoyed lunch at the site where the tapistry was to be produced. Right now, they were still erecting the building were it was going to take place, but they had already made a lot of progress in a few months.
That night most of us went to bed early, because at 05.00 in the morning we took a plane to Sao Paolo (after we had opened our bags to let the Bolivia anti-drug force take a sniff) and after taking a look at that city for about 5 hours we continued our trip to Amsterdam. It was very strange to see all the neatly arranged plots of land and well-maintained buildings again, connected by trains and proper roads. The Netherlands is really conveniened to live in, but I hope I will remember the dirt-roads, the poorly-built houses, the run-down taxi-cars, the coca-chewing construction workers, the spicy smell of the jungle, the contaminated tap-water, the movement for autonomy, the big landowners and the small shopkeepers. The Netherlands have a lot Bolivia doesn't have (money being the most important thing) but Bolivia has a lot that I've never seen in the Netherlands.

Sí a la Autonomía

2008-07-21T21:46:00.004+02:00

After visiting the small community La Libertad, we went to another remote area called Huaytú on July, 15th. There, the NGO Aguarague is teaching people how they can increase their honey-production with the Bolivian bees that they're keeping. Right now, they use big metal cans as beehyves, but they're going to transfer the colonies to new, wooden hyves. That will increase the production and by selling the honey through a cooperation they can get 2x to 4x the price they get now. It was great to meet these people who live from almost nothing, but still make a very merry impression. They very much appreciated our visit, and we very much appreciated their warm welcome.
This was a big contrast to the inauguration of the new chairman of the entrepreneurial association of Santa Cruz, CadeCruz. Raul Strauss, the new chairman, had invited us to this event, but merely spoke to us. We waited for about 45 min before the ceremony started, and it contained a lot of references to the importance of a strong Santa Cruz, promoting autonomy. This posh elite dressed in expensive suits and dresses saw themselves as the motor of growth in the region and the country. But it was difficult to believe that this rich elite really cared about people like we met in Huaytú and after the ceremony ended we left as soon as possible. We went to a Mexican restaurant for a late dinner, and later on two men who apparantly had also been to the ceremony sat down at the table next to us. While we were joking about the strong autonomía movement, one of them showed his appreciation for what he thought was our support for the movement and gave us his business-card. He appeared to be the head of that whole movement, which must be very powerful judging by the many 'Sí a la Autonomía' signs that appear everywhere in the streets.
On monday the 16th we tried to process some data we had gathered through the previous week, prepare for meetings to come and decide on unfinished matters. That prooved to be a daunting task though, with time passing quickly while everybody was typing away on laptops and in internet-cafés.
But it was necessary to wrap up our activities of last week, because on the 17th we left for Samaipata, a small touristic village in the first hills of the altiplano, the highlands that cover the west of Bolivia. It was nice to get away from the bustle of Santa Cruz and enjoy the quietness of the small village. The main reason we went there was to talk with the Asociación Samaipata Cultural, who wanted to set up their own library. We had many meetings to teach them how they can write a project proposal, find out how we could make this project economically sustainable and ask schoolchildren what they thought of the idea. In the end we decided to first set up a bookstore and later on expand this to a kind of study center/library.
With old Inca-ruins and a natural reserve nearby, Samaipata attrackts quite some tourists. The income from this business, however, mainly goes to foreigners who set up a hostel, restaurant or bar catering to the specific demands of European and American tourists. Therefore, we organized a workshop where we explained how locals could get more benefit from the tourist-industry. We combined this with a competition, promising a $200,- award for the best proposal to implement corporate social responsibility in a small local enterprise. About 30 people turned up for this workshop and they reacted enthousiastic to the initiative that we showed. Let's hope we get a lot of good proposals!

Cruising through Santa Cruz

2008-07-14T01:52:00.003+02:00

My last year at Leiden University for a great part has been dedicated to SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) Leiden. With this organisation we try to set up development projects by exploiting opportunities through education and entrepreneurship for local people with little access to funds and information. We're especially active in Bolivia, because several of our team-members have strong connections with that country. Therefore we went on July 8th to Bolivia with a group of 13 people and a donation of Xplore, a Dutch organisation funded by the governement that promotes international development cooperation.
All our projects in Bolivia take place around Santa Cruz, so we took a plane and a taxi to backpacker's hostel Jodanga in that city. With free wireless internet and a swimming pool, it wasn't a bad place to stay. The first few days we prepared for the meetings, visits, evaluations, presentations and excursions to come. A few of our members had already gone to Bolivia a few times, so they arranged most of the program. One new potential project is the promotion of Fundempresa, an organisation like the Chamber of Commerce, among small entrepreneurs. To find out if people are already registered there or know that organisation, we took to the streets on thursday 10 july and interviewed a few dozen shopkeepers. It was great to see the different reactions, ranging from enthousiastic to unwilling and from unsympathetic to talkative. Some people were already registered, others didn't know the organisation and some didn't want to have anything to do with it.
The next day we went to Buena Vista, a small village where we stayed in a far-away accomodation next to the jungle. We had all the mosquitos, sounds, smells, plants, animals and views you would expect there. After getting out of Santa Cruz some parts next to the road already look like 'the wild', and when I saw the forest stretching out to the horizon I could understand people don't see any harm in burning down a little plot and grow some fruits or vegetables. And indeed, we could visit a coffee-plantation there and saw parts of burned-down forest and small papaya-orchards. After spending a night there we visited another potential project: a fish-farm where schoolchildren are taught how to grow and sell fish. We could participate in the first lesson of this course and see the ponds where the fish are grown. The man responsible for all this, Mr. Rojas, was very passionate about his undertaking and asked us if we could help him build the processing-area for the fish. That evening, we decided to support hum with €3000,-.
Today, august 13th, we went to another project. In La Libertad, a small community at about 45 minutes from Santa Cruz Mr. Reyes is teaching people how to organically grow their own vegetables and sell this to a shop for organic food. He is also growing medicinal-mushrooms and hopes to export these to Brasil and/or Japan in the next few months. While we were in La Libertad, we gave a presentation about basic entrepreneurial skills such as planning and accounting, which was very well recieved. It was nice to see how these people live and how enthousiastic they are about the idea of producing their own food in a sustainable way.

Berlin, Belgium, Bolivia: Beware!

2008-07-11T14:09:00.004+02:00

Before going to the US, I wanted to enjoy the beautiful diversity of Europe and of course join my SIFE Leiden team (see www.sifeleiden.nl) to Bolivia, where most of our projects take place.
The reason I wanted to go to Berlin was mainly because my sister was doing European Voluntary Service there at the Schlessische Art Institute in Kreuzberg. I heard from so many people that Berlin is such a great town, that I really had to see that place. With my sister and her housemates (she´s living in Friedrichshain) as guides, I was introduced to the most obscure bars and clubs. What I really loved of East-Berlin was the fact that in any empty industrial complex or office building there could be a stage, DJ or theater hidden behind doors coverd with graffiti or other art-forms. So the night-life was great, and during the day I enjoyed the funny and strange surroundings of east- and west Berlin where you can probably find the most dense combination of a big range of cultural, historical and ideological infuences. I especially liked to see all the remnants of the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik): all the huge buildings, memorials, avenues (named after Karl Marx, Lenin etc), parks and of course the Berlin wall. It's really strange to walk around those eastern neighbourhoods, take the underground and get off at the foot of the most modern entertainment, shopping and business-centers at Potsdammer Platz.
After taking in all these different impressions for 4 days I said good-bye to my sister and went back to Holland, but not for long. The next weekend I first went to Maastricht and after spending the night there, me and Ignas, a friend of mine took the bus to Vaals and walked up to the Vaalserberg, with 300 meters above sea-level the highest spot in the Netherlands. It's also the 3-country-spot, where the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet. So from there we crossed the border and walked into the Ardennen, a beautiful area in the eastern part of Belgium. There we enjoyed the nature, railroads, views and local beer hiking and camping for 3 days until we reached Trois Ponts, a small village from where we took the train back to our own low country.
And when I got back, I had about 1 day to get ready for my next trip: visiting Bolivia with SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) Leiden (see www.sifeleiden.nl). After helping to set up a number of development projects there for the past year, I finally get the chance to see it all with my own eyes!

Going To DC!

2008-07-11T13:55:00.002+02:00

A few months ago I heard there will be a good reason to start posting on this blog again: I will be studying for two years at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. After they put me on a waiting list and two other universities rejected my application (Johns Hopkins and Chicago) I got an e-mail telling me that I was admitted at GW! That means I will be doing the 2-years master International Trade and Investment Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs there. After studying Japanese, Political Science and some Anthropology, I think economics will give me the practical tools necessary to contribute to any kind of business, project or policy. I still want to do ´something with international development´, but I figured I could do this through the private sector just as well as in a public institution. And because in the end it does all come down to money, studying how and why money is invested in certain activities will probably help me to understand why certain countries developed successfuly and others didn´t.
But before I can start doing this I have to arrange a visa, a place to live, register for courses, make sure I attent orientation activities etc. etc, so that will keep me busy for a while. But I also have to enjoy my last holidays, so for this summerI planned a trip to Berlin, Belgium, Bolivia, Prague, Vienna and Croatia! You´ll read more about this in the next posts.

Zentertaining

2006-08-01T08:59:00.000+02:00

After staying at the zen-temple Bukkoku-ji in Obama for two and a half weeks I`m now staying with the family of my girlfriend in Yahata, Kita-Kyushu (in the north of the southern island Kyushu of Japan).
During my stay at Bukkoku-ji, there were many interesting things I could do and see. Basically, you could say living in a temple would have the same pattern every day and not much variation, but at this temple every day was different. Still, there were certain things we did do every day, but to which I couldn`t get used during the first week. These consisted of:
4:40 Wake up
5:10 Excercises
5:40 Zazen (1 x 40 min.)
6:20 Chanting (morning ceremony)
7:00 Chanting (Kannon ceremony)
7:20 Breakfast
7:45-8:00 Cleaning

11:30 Lunch

16:00 Chanting (Evening ceremony)
17:00 Dinner
18:20 Zazen (3 x 40 min.)
21.15 Go to bed

If you would read this schedule, there is no reason to think it would be very hard to go through every day. But the problem is that during almost each part, the way of sitting is not very comfortable if you`re not used to it. During zazen, you sit with you legs crossed, and that is sure to hurt after 40 min. During the chanting and the meals, you sit in seiza (on your knees, sitting on you feet) and that hurts already in about 10 min. So the first three days were very painful, and the first week was not very pleasant either. But I gradually got used to the pain and to the way of sitting, so after about 10 days I could go through the days with not too much difficulty. This was the hardest of the whole lifestyle there, so for those used to that way of sitting it`s not a very hard life. For me who didn`t do any zazen for about 10 months, on the other hand, it was quite hard to get through the day.
Next to this fixed schedule we would normally have `samu`, working, from 8:50 to 10:00 and from 13:30 to 15:00. Because at those times at least my legs wouldn`t hurt, this part of the day I liked most in the beginning. Most of the work consisted of weeding in the gardens were the monks grow all kinds of vegetables, but we also cleaned a small waterway around the temple, cleaned the zendo (where they do zazen) and as a dutch guy I also spend one afternoon repairing some of the bikes of the temple.
About once in 5 days the men would leave the temple to go on `takuhatsu`, a trip through the neighbourhood, the town or even other places to go along the houses and ask the people for money (technically, they stand in front of the house chanting a sutra and then the people can decide whether they want to give something or not, so they don`t directly ask for money). The first to times on such an occasion I stayed home with the women and other newcomers, but the third time I was asked if I wanted to go aswel. Because it is a nice experience to see those places were they go and because it seemed to be quite hard to walk a whole day in those monk`s robes and on straw-sandals I decided to take the challenge and see if I could keep up with them. Apparantly I had good straw sandals, because they didn`t really hurt and it was not very hard for me to walk from one train-station to the next, chanting the `Enmei-juku kannon-gyo` time and time again. After that first time, I went one more time, now along the seacost and by car to get from one village to the other. It was very nice to walk through the countryside and through small places were there wasn`t even a trainstation.
Every day with a 4 or a 9 in the date was bathing day and a kind of holiday, so we didn`t have samu then. However, the rest of the schedule was still in place, so for me it meant that only the nicest part of the program would be cancelled. By the way, we could also take showers at any other time we wanted, expecially during the hot summer. All the time we didn`t have any of the above activities (the fixed schedule and the work) we had time for ourselves, so that was quite a large part of the day. At those moments many people would just take a nap, because it was not very much appreaciated to read books there. The priest thought it was better to just practice zazen and not spend too much time on reading the stories of other people who had experienced zazen.
The temple was quite easy going compared to most (or maybe any) other zen-temples. First of all, it was a temple of the Soto-shu of zen, which is not as strict as the Rinzai-shu. For the rest, the priest didn`t seem to mind if someone would not go to the chanting or zazen, at least there were normally few monks who turned up at the evening ceremony. Next to that, we had all kinds of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and even after samu we would always get all kinds of candy. Most of this food was donated to the temple and that was so much that we almost couldn`t eat all of it before it would go bad. Especially in this season there were lots of tomatoes, cucumbers and plums that we got and the cooks had to think of ways to make something out of it for every meal. Most of the vegetables we got were not `perfect` enough to sell to regular consumers, so the growers would give all the unsellable vegetables to the temple. I always wondered how Japanese tomatoes could be so perfect, but they just give or throw all the not so perfect ones away!
Another thing that was very different at this temple compared to other zen-temples was that anyone who wanted to stay there for a while was welcome to come. Therefore, there are many foreigners who stay there for a few weeks like me, or a few months and some foreigners even stay there for years and become monks. There are also Japanese who do the same: some even staying for just a few days, and others becoming monks there. Maybe half of the people there were foreigners from all over the world: New Zealand, the US, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Poland etc. With so many different people there, you can always have a chat with someone about Japan, other countries, buddhism or their experiences at the temple so far, so instead of being in a quiet place where everybody is only concentrated on meditation and reading sutra`s, Bukkoku-ji is quite lively and a good place to learn lots about many things from many different people. Therefore, it`s maybe not a `real` zen temple in that it`s not that strict and people aren`t that focussed on only meditation. On the other hand, the fact that so many people can experience zazen there and practice it in their own way makes it a very friendly, open minded place. The priest there, Roshi-sama, is also completely used to the many foreigners and is very well able to express himself with the few English words he knows. And his frienliness and openness to anyone who comes to Bukkoku-ji is also admireable. By anyone living there he is regarded as the one who keeps the place alive, even if he doesn`t participate consequently in all activities because of his old age. But next to meeting so many interesting people at that temple, the few times I spoke to Roshi-sama were already worth my trip and stay in Obama.

And now, the end is near...

2006-07-06T14:41:00.000+02:00

For the last few weeks I`ve been so busy, first writing papers and then packing my stuff and saying goodbye to people. Everybody who hasn`t had an answer to his/her e-mail in that period, please forgive me.
Last monday I had to leave the dormitory, because starting from friday a whole bunch of Americans will follow some summercourse at Waseda and stay at OUR dormitory. They should have let us stay there some longer. Now we had our last class on friday, the closing ceremony on saturday and we had to leave the dorm on monday. Normally it would have been right after the closing ceremony, but because that was a sunday we had one day more. Lucky us >_<
So I decided to use this as a reason to do something nice like travelling around Japan. Actually, for most of the time of this month I`ll be staying at a temple called Bukkokuji in Obama (at the west-side of the main island of Japan), but on the way there I`m visiting Matsumoto, Takayama and today Kanazawa. A nice way to see some more of Japan, and the travelling makes me forget that I`ve left Tokyo as my home-town.
Also because I knew of course that I had to leave, and I already felt bad about it since maybe a month ago, I did`t even feel that sad when I left my dorm and Tokyo. Instead of feeling regret for leaving so many friends behind, I was thankful that I had the chance to have such a nice experience and meet so many wonderful people. Even though I might not meet most of them ever again, I know I will see those who where closest to me again somewhere on the world. And even if I would`t meet them again, I`ll always remember them and know that they`ll remember me.
But next to this sentimental talk, let me also say something about the city. Tokyo was just unbelieveably awesome! Now that I`m visiting other cities I realize again how great the Japanese capital is. When I was walking through Takayama at 21.30 o`clock, the shops were closed and the streets where empty. Here in Kanazawa there is some more activity, but only in a certain area of the city. In Tokyo, there are always people on the main streets, and even if it gets quiet maybe around 4, the day starts again at 5 with people going home from clubs or going to work. I really mise that lifely athmosphere.
But for the next 3 weeks I`ll be staying at a temple, so I`ll just have to get used to a more quiet life. I hope it won`t be too difficult. I`m getting a bit nervous about it, but I think it will be a nice experience. When I leave the temple, I`ll go visit the family of my girlfriend in Fukuoka again, and then I go back to Tokyo to catch the plane back to Holland. Luckily I`ll go back to Tokyo once, and I will spend my last day and my last night in that wonderful city. Once I get back to Holland I will write some more about what I`ve learned, what I liked and what I hated most about my life in Japan. If I have the time...

2006-06-10T14:57:00.000+02:00

Eriko on top of the mountain, under the sun and against the background of the countryside an hour outside of Tokyo, where you can already find rice-paddy's and small, quiet villages.

2006-06-10T14:54:00.000+02:00

The members of my circle who participated in the tournament. In the fron on the left is Matsuoka Tomitaro, who is mostly in charge during practice. In front on the right is Koyanagi Ryosuke, the only one in the circle who matches my length and to whom I lost in the semi-finals...

Fighting my way to the (sub) top

2006-06-10T14:00:00.000+02:00

So it's already been a month since I wrote my last post, but you must believe me if I say that it feels like it was just one day.
Trying to remember what I've done through the last month, two things directly pop up: the taekwondo tournament of May 7th and the climb of Mt. Tsukuba on May 21st.
The taekwondo tournament was of course the ultimate test to see if I had learned something in all the months that I've been practicing. It was a tournament for the Tokyo region, and even though there live almost as much people in that area as in the whole of the Netherlands (about 12 and 16 million, if I'm right), there were just a few people who participated. With their 'native' karate, judo, aikido, kendo, jujitsu, nunjitsu etc. the Japanese are not very likely to practice a Korean martial art. However, that doesn't mean that its easy to win, of course.
The tournament was devided in children (who numbered three), women (I think about five), men under 68 kilogram (18, including me) and men above 68 kilogram (maybe around seven) and black-belt participants (maybe around 13).
Every division had to go through three competitions: kata, sparring and the break-test.
The kata-part consists of a certain combination of movements that each participant performs individually and which have to be done as good as possible. The idea behind this test is that it creates a kind of ideal fighting-form, with the most powerfull moves in the most efficient form. However, they are done quite slowly, to be able to focus on perfection. Every time, two participants compete and the winner goes on to the next round. Eventually, with quite some luck (first my opponent didn't show up, then the next one made a mistake), I made it to the fourth place.
The sparring part consists of one round of two minutes in which the two opponents have to get point by hitting the other one with hand or feet above the belt and on the front. This is what you could call the 'real thing', it requires speed, strength, a good condition, good tactics and good techniques. Because I had done my best to get my weigth below 68 kilo, I was the biggest participant in that division. That means that I have the advantage of the longest legs and arms, which is quite handy with Taekwondo. Therefore, I managed to become fourth again.
The last one, the break-test, was something quite new for me. The goal is to break as many wooden boards (of three) with a puch and later on with a kick. Because it costs money to buy new wooden boards all the time, and because no one at our club has the repairable ones that they used at the tournament, I'd only done this one time before. However, we've been practising punching and kicking all the time, so it shouldn't be such a problem. Still, even when punching without thinking about how my hand would feel afterwards, I could break only one board. This was still one more than most other participants, so if I would break all three boards with a kick, I could go to the next round. I succeeded, but didn't in the next round so I ended up fourth together with my sempai from the same club of Waseda University. The same sempai became first in men under 68 kilo on both kata and sparring - so I've had a good teacher. Another member of our club became second on sparring after I lost to him in the semi-finals.
So with better results than I had expected, but without a medal, I went home after we had eaten with the whole delegation of the club.
For pictures, click on the heading of this article.I'm the guy with the long, blond hair ; )
About the mountain-climbing: it had been very changeable weather the weeks before, but that sunday it was really perfectly nice weather. The sky was blue, the sun was warm, the woods were cool and it stayed like that for the whole day. At the foot of the mountain there was a Shinto-shrine, and also on the two tops where we went there was a small Shinto shrine. Apparently, this was a sacred place, but most people just went there for the nice view. I really liked to walk around there, but Eriko, my girlfriend, wasn't really used to these kind of activities. But she persevered and even survived the sore muscles that followed the next few days.
Lately, I'm trying to focus on studying. With the semester ending at the 30th of June, I have to make sure to finish some papers by that time. However, with people coming over (Agnoek, a fellow student from Leiden who's studying at the University of Kyoto for this year visited Tokyo last weekend), and all kinds of activities (on Monday and Tuesday there will be a International Festival at Waseda, and in two weeks I'll have another exam for Taekwondo), that isn't always very easy. But I think it will be okay.

European theories in Japanese context

2006-05-10T04:43:00.000+02:00

The second (and last) semester has started about a month ago, so it's about time that I tell about the useful things I'm doing here next to all the travelling and going out.
Maybe the most important course I'm taking is 'individual research'. With the approval of Leiden University, a tutoring teacher here at Waseda and a plan for my research I could apply for this subject. It consists of one meeting a week with my tutor and it allows me to conduct research on any topic I'm interested in. I'm mostly interested in developmental politics/economics, so I wanted to look at which elements of Japan's developmental policy are applicable in other non-asian developing countries. I choose for non-asian countries to avoid the ever recurring comparison with the newly developed economies of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Because I liked the methods of the Hungrian teacher Katalin Ferber very much last semester, I asked her to be my tutor. Since she has most knowledge about former Sovjet-countries (as non-asian developing countries), I decided to use these countries for comparison with the Japanese model.
Next to this individual course, I'm taking two more courses by her because these are directly related to the topic of my individual research: Economic Modernization of Japan, and Comparative Economics, about the differences and similarities between capitalist, socialist and the Japanese economic system.
For my individual research and Modernization of Japan I'm reading about the developmental theories invented and adapted from Europe by the elite who led the Meiji-restauration in 1868. In order to know whát they actually learned from European theories, I started studying German cameralist and Western-European mercantalist theories. Interestingly, similar ideas had developed independedly in Japan throughout the 19th century (so already before 1868). The next step is to look at how these theories were fit into and applied to the specific characterics of the Japanese society and the needs in international power-relations. All the while, Western countries also kept adapting their economic policies to the changing global situation, establishing the gold standard, trade treaties and expanding their colonial empire.
As you might understand, it's quite complicated material (and I'm not even talking about the comparison with the socialist system yet), but very interesting. I feel like everything I've learned about Japan so far is coming together now while I'm doing this research. And many questions I had until now are being answered little by little.
Next to these three courses I'm also taking 'World Economy and International Business', a more practical course about, indeed, international trade and business. Since until now I've mostly seen the leftist, protective or at least public side of economic theory I'm interested in the rightist, liberal, private side of the story. And indeed, last class the (Japanese) teacher did advocate free trade and even posed that child labour should be tolerated if the other option would be to suspend trade with the country concerned (because in the absence of trade the country can't get enough revenue to improve the living conditions of the population, including the children).
And of course I have Japanese classes, consisting of learning vocabulary, conversation and kanji (chinese characters). However, some nice features this semester are that we are focussing on reading some more, so that we can also pick our own book that we can read in class. I choose 'Why the bureacratic kingdom should be broken down' by Junichiro Koizumi, the present prime minister of Japan. And we're also watching a movie in class, every week about ten minutes, about ramen. Ramen is a chinese noodle dish that's very popular here, and the movie uses every opportunity to exploit that popularity to show it in exaggerated proportions. If you want to see it for yourself, the movie is called 'Tanpopo'.

2006-04-25T18:09:00.000+02:00

A building behind Osaka station with an astonishingly futuristic and in my opinion beautiful architecture

2006-04-25T18:06:00.000+02:00

At one of the tops near the vulcano Aso, in the middle of Kyushu

Small road to the South

2006-04-18T16:07:00.000+02:00

It's already been already more than two weeks since I came back from my trip to the south, but since classes started I've been quite occupied with getting everything right. But before I tell about the new semester, let me tell about the trip I made. It became quite a long story, but to give you at least a little bit an idea of how many places I've visited and also to convey the variaty of things I've seen during my trip, this is really the shortest description I can give.
Quite some friends of me are studying in Kyushyu now, the island south of Honshu, the biggest island of Japan (where cities like Kyoto and Tokyo are located). In Nagasaki ten fellow students of Leiden university are studying and in Oita a friend from highschool is doing an exchange program. So I thought visiting them would be a good occasion for me to explore some more distant parts of Japan. Because I still had the time during the spring break, I decided to go on a trip for twelve days to visit Kyushyu and some cities of Honshu south of Tokyo. Japan Railways has some kind of pass that allows you to travel five days for as much as you like by local train, so I bought two of those and tried to make the most of it.
First, I took an airplane to Fukuoka, a big city in the north of Kyushyu. From there I went to Nagasaki, of which the most impressive experience was probably to go to Dejima. Dejima was an artificial island in the harbor of Nagasaki where Dutch merchants were stationed in the 17th and 18th century when only the Netherlands as western country could trade with Japan. Because that is were Japan-Dutch relationships started and where Japan gathered information about the West while Dutch officials learned more and more about Japan, it can rightly be regarded as the cradle of Japanese studies in the Netherlands, and particular in Leiden. So I was standing there at the historical origin of my present studies. Even though Dejima is now completely integrated in the city that has been expanding into what once was the harbor and all original buildings are now replaced by replica's (remember that Nagasaki was the second city to be destroyed by an atom bomb), just to be at that exact spot where Dutch trade-officials had lived was indeed something amazing.
Apart from that, I visited places like Chinatown, the peace-park and the memorial museum about the atom bomb (which I will write about when I get to Hiroshima) and Glover garden. First I wondered why I would have to go to that last tourist spot - just because it boasts the oldest western style house of Japan? But when I got there, it appeared that that house had belonged to one Thomas Blake Glover (1838-1911). You might still wonder what's so interesting about that, but when I got there I was utterly impressed by the contributions of this Englishman (or Scot to be exact) to the Japanese modernisation. He arrived in Nagasaki in 1859 and established Gover & Co. there. He apparently earned lots of money, because subsequently he supported rebellions against the shogunate, resulting in the Meiji Restauration of 1868. He also helped establishing Japan Brewery Co., still existing as Kirin Beer, and financed the first modern ship-dock. Apart from that, he pioneered in railroad construction and made the first telephone line (from his office to his house) in Japan. To topp it all of, he influenced and supported other businessmen and his sons to expand Japanese industries, thus contributing greatly to earlyJapanese economic development. Just this one man!
After enjoying those kind of sweet surprising discoveries and the tranquillity of Nagasaki, I went back to Fukuoka to meet the family of my girlfriend. First we spend a big part of her birthday in Fukuoka, visiting some temples, a museum for modern Asian art and the workshop of an old man who was still weaving textile by hand. A time consuming job, but one with a history of at least a few hundred years. We spend some time talking with him about maintaining traditions, competition in the textile industry for kimono's and the future of hand-woven textile. Actually, there are some young students who want to learn the skills, so it seems that the craftmanship will still continue for at least one more generation.
Then we finally went to the house of Eriko's family in Yahata. When I got there, I was warmly welcomed. We had a very nice Japanese dinner and a cake to celebrate Eriko's birthday. I would stay there for two nights, so I had some time to get to know everybody a little bit. Especially Eriko's sisters were very excited about my visit and made me feel like I was some important guest. It was really fun to talk and hang out with them. All of us went to Kokura to visit the castle, Japanese garden and futuristically designed shopping-centre there. We also went to the harbor of Kita-Kyushu, the most northern part of the island Kyushu where a bridge leads to Honshu. It was quite interesting to see the big harbor and the industry that had made Kita-Kyushu one of the industrial centers in Japan (next to Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo).
Then I went to Oita to meet my friend Ignas, who's studying there for a year. Before arriving there, however, I stopped for a few hours in Beppu to visit some hell-pools (hot water sources reaching temperatures near 100 degrees Celcius) and relaxed in an onsen (a public bath-house using the water of such hot water sources). To fast forward a bit: with Ignas I climbed the vulcano Aso, some mountain next to Beppu and went to Yufuin, another onsen-town. Then I went back to Yahata and from there to Himeji with the oldest castle of Japan, to Hiroshima and to Miyashima (all in one day!). Now, Hiroshima is also mostly famous for the atomic bombing on 6 August 1945. Because the actual scale and suffering of such an event is just unimaginable, I'll just discuss some of the reasons why the US eventually decided to use those weapons of mass destruction. First of all, it was a quick way to force Japan to unconditional surrender, maybe taking more Japanese lives, but at least less American lives than an invasion of the country. Secondly, the US had spend large sums of money to develop nuclear weapons, so if they wouldn't use them they could be criticised by the public for unnecessary spending of tax-money. But why two cities? Japan would also have surrendered after the bombing of only Hiroshima. Because the US had developed two types of bombs (nuclear fission with uranium and nuclear fusion with hydrogen), so they wanted to 'test' both. That is also why they chose cities that hadn't been bombed at all during the war as potential targets. In the end, the weather conditions were the decisive factor to make Hiroshima and Nagasaki the actual targets. So next to a (maybe unnecessary) military operation, the dropping of the bombs was a unique opportunity to test the weapons in 'real live'. As you can imagine, visiting the peace parks and memorial museums in both cities wasn't exactly 'fun', but I thought it was the least I could do to make myself realise again how horrible war is. I also discovered that the memorial hall in Hiroshima was also quite open about Japanese atrocities during the Second World War, especially in China. While for example the War Museum at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine is mostly showing the suffering of the Japanese people and soldiers, in Hiroshima it was shown how Japanese had cruelly massacred civillians during the attack on Nanking.
From Hiroshima, I went on to Osaka. When I got there, I felt actually happy to be back in a big city. After living in Tokyo for some months, I was so used to the liveliness of the metropolis, that the smaller towns where I had been in Kyushu had made me miss that exciting athmosphere. However, later on I discovered on a rainy day that mainly the area around the station is interesting in Osaka, while the rest mainly consists of office buildings and further away houses and industries. But I liked the big harbor here aswell. I also visited Mount Koya, where Kobo Daishi had established the Shingon sect of buddhism in the 9th century and the Ise shrine, where Amaterasu Omikami is worshipped. Amaterasu Omikami is regarded as the ancestor of the Japanese imperial family and is thus the most important god, with Ise shrine being the most important place of worship. However, it is impossible to go to the actual shrine. The closest you can get is an opening in a wooden fence from where you can see the gate to the precincts of the shrine. From farther away, the roof of the shrine is visible, rising above the fence, but that's all. And the entire structure is just made out of wood, with some golden decorations, but nothing compared to for example the Vatican in Rome. So I was quite amazed by the simplicity of this most important sanctity of Japan. On the other hand, it is very impressive to see that for Japanese it is indeed the place (or in other words: nature) that is the most important, and not what human have added to it. And I must say, it was a very nice place. The shrine is surrounded by woods, and even though a wide path filled with tourists leads to the shrine, it's all immersed in a very nice (I want to avoid the cheezy terms 'peaceful' or 'sacred') athmosphere.
From Ise I went to my last destination, the city Nagoya. Even though it's the fourth biggest city in Japan (after Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka), it mostly consists of industry and living quarters and is not known as a nice touristic destination. Nevertheless, I discovered quite some interesting places there, from the Nagoya castle to a Dutch windmill (memorating some international flower-exhibition), a very nice Asian Art Museum and a big Kannon-temple. But I had to go back to Tokyo the next day, so I couldn't spend that much time there.
When I came back to Tokyo I was quite tired from the whole trip. I had taken so many trains, visited so many places and travelled such a long distance that I still can't believe it myself. But I was very satisfied with the accomplishment and I was glad to be back home and stay at the same place for longer than two nights.

Dutch in Japan, French in Tokyo and Germans in France

2006-03-20T15:52:00.000+01:00

The last week I've had the chance to meet some of my fellow students of Leiden who visited Tokyo. Right now, ten of them are studying in Nagasaki in the South of Japan and lately five of them came all the way to the north to see Japan's capital.
First, I met Gijs, Bart, Colling and Rob who were here for about five days. Eriko, my girlfriend, was planning to go to a musical by students of the University of Tokyo, so we ended up going there with all six of us. Even though the campus was somewhere in a residential area with nothing of any interest nearby, it was fun to see what the university looked like and the musical was definitely worth watching. Later that week we also went to a kabuki play (Japanese theater), which was wonderful as always. Even though kabuki is a traditional form of theater, they use such exquisite sceneries, costumes, make-up, 'special effects' and jokes that it looks more like you're watching some futuristic play instead of something that's written a few hundred years ago. We saw Touryu Oguri Hangan, about the hero Oguri Hangan who has to protect his lover and himself from an evil warlord (daimyo) who wants to expand his power. To give you some examples of the 'futuristic features': when there is a set change between the scenes, then really everything changes. But even during a scene the scenery can change because of the revolving stage. The costumes are basically traditional Japanese clothes, but they wear the most luxurious materials in all kinds of colors and patterns. Together with the strong make-up they wear (especially the bad guys to accentuate their evil looks) this makes for a spectacle even without the acting. During the play, there was also a horse that consisted of two man in a costume, but which looked quite natural and on which Oguri Hangan even performed some tricks. Also the death of any character is always spectacular, especially in this play were it ended with the death of one of the good guys as the apotheosis (of course sacrificing himself for Oguri's lover, thus making his death more something of a brave, laudable act than something sad).
Anyway, we had a nice time at the Kabuki theater. For the rest I showed my dutch friends Waseda University, we ate ramen (actually chinese noodles but now almost more famous in Japan) at one of the many ramen restaurants at Waseda-street and we went to a club were the American DJ Premier was playing. It seemed that the Nagasaki-students weren't very enthousiastic about that last part, but I really liked to hear that DJ again.
The next day they left for Nagasaki, but Kim, another student of Leiden studying at Nagasaki, had already arrived in Tokyo with a dutch friend. With them I went to a party at the French-Japanese Institute, where ambassies of french-speaking countries offer food and drinks. After that we also went to a party at a French club, so we fully enjoyed some of the international aspects of Tokyo. Now that I think of it, even though there are relatively few foreigners in Japan, there are many opportunities to enjoy foreign culture in Tokyo. Music, theater, movies and those kind of parties are quite numerous, but I think the Japanese fancy for fashionable foreign influences is a more important cause for this than the many different cultures of the foreigers living in Tokyo.
Actually, after going to that club, I went to a French movie (after eating at a Mexican restaurant) with Keyaki, who I had met in France when I studied in Avignon. He's still studying French, so this closing movie of a French Film Festival was sure something of interest to him. It was the movie 'Joyeux Noël' about the way French, English and German soldiers celebrated Christmas Eve together during the First World War. Even though Japanese liked to stress the fact that they were very much moved by this wonderful story and that they hope that nobody will ever make war again, the director (who was there to give some explanation and answer some questions) said that it was actually about the fact that, even in this world with so much bad and horrible things, people can make something good happen. So whether it's the First World War or just a rainy monday, it's important to try to make the best of it, help other people and create happiness.

2006-03-17T10:17:00.000+01:00

The beach close to our bungalow at Koh Chang.

2006-03-17T10:14:00.000+01:00

Some buildings on the precincts of the Royal Palace in Bangkok. The main tourist-hot-spot, but indeed worth visiting. The king in Thailand is highly esteemed by the population, and portraits of him decorate many restaurants, offices, stations and other public buildings.

Thailand

2006-03-16T08:53:00.000+01:00

So now I think I should write about what we did in Thailand. When we went from Hong Kong to Bangkok it was as if we changed from spring to summer as we felt the warmth of the evening right when we got out of the plane.
The hotel in Bangkok where we stayed was unbelievably luxurious. Actually, our room was a studio with its own kitchen, couch, television, stereo-set and a big bathroom. If you wonder how we got to stay at that place: Eriko was offered to stay there for 1000 yen (maybe 8 euros) a night by the Japanese owner of the place. He had read a question she had posted on the Japanese community-site mixi about Thailand and because he was born in the same city and went to the same university, he was so generous to help us out and keep us from staying at some obscure, cheap, small hotel in the center of Bangkok. So now we stayed in a shopping area, about 10 min. by bus from the center. After we had dropped our suitcases we explored the neighbourhood, walking along many stalls where you could buy everything from fruit to dinner to clothes. In Thailand, you can find these kind of stalls practically everywhere and they're often a cheap alternative to normal shops selling the same stuff.
They also show the transition that Thailand is making as a developing country. While most Thai people earn too little to go to a fancy restaurant or expensive clothing-shop, some people and most tourists have enough money to try some of the upper-class establishments where they can spend an average monthly (or yearly) salary in one night. This sharp division between rich and poor made me feel a bit ambigiuos about staying at that hotel, but who could turn down the offer Japanese guy had made us? However, we also found out that maybe half of the people who start talking to you on the street just want money from you. Many expensive shops only have tourists as customers, but they're only interested in you as long as they think you'll buy something. Their greedy, cold attitude stands in sharp contrast to the friendly, relaxed way 'normal' Thai people treat you. For example people who have one of those foodstalls would normally try their best to make us something vegetarian and try to communicate as far as possible. They don't try to get as much money as possible by charging more for tourists and their smile really expresses happiness. It gave me the impression that middle-class (that is: quite poor) Thai people are generally much more satisfied and relaxed than those rich shop-owners who only think about how to make more money.
Thailand is a buddhist country, and this religion is still very vivid. Therefore, we could visit many temples that were beautifully decorated. I think not really with gold, but maybe gold-coloured paint, but also mozaïks with ceramics, small pieces of colored glass or mirrors. And of course the typical Thai roofs with those pointy edges. Also some ruins about 100 km. north of Bangkok (in Ayuthaya) were impressive to see. While many people think Thailand is very touristy, it was only the main sightseeing-hot-spots were most foreigners came. All the other temples, ruins or roads, even very beautiful ones, were quiet or only visited by Thai.
After three nights in Bangkok we took the nightbus to Trat, from where we would take the ferry to the island Koh Chang. After arriving at the island, we took a kind of taxi to the south where we would stay at a bungalow/hut at Bailan Family Bungalows. Even though it was just a basic facility with bed and shower, it was all we needed and the whole place had a very nice, relaxed, friendly athmosphere. Even though it was very warm, the sky was clouded and from time to time we even had some rain. But it would have been too hot anyway if the sun would directly shine down on us. The bungalows were very close to the beach, so we could go swimming or watching the sunset easily. And it wasn't just any beach, but the one with palm-trees and coconuts scattered on the sand like you would only see on pictures or in movies.
At the island we mainly enjoyed swimming and snorkling. On the second day we took a boat trip to some smaller islands nearby were there where beautiful fishes, coral reefs and other sea-plants and animals. It was unbelievable how colourful that underwaterworld was. We were also lucky enough to have a restaurant with a separate vegetarian menu closeby, with delicious food made by the woman who owned the place and her daughter, and served by her young son. On the last evening we were on the island (we stayed there for three nights again) there was a reggae concert where all backpackers and festive locals gathered (which still didn't result in a very big crowd, but the place was not that big anyway). It was a great, uplifting conclusion of our stay at that paradise on earth.
Even though the island is known to be one of the least touristy ones, there were already many resorts and luxury stores with suits or juwellery. While driving from the ferry-harbor in the north to our bungalow in the south, we could also see that they were building many more facilities, mostly made of grey, gruesome concrete. When we talked to the owner of Bailan Family Bungalows later on, he said the government actually supported the construction of such solid constructions, to fit the needs of the decadent tourists. He had even had difficulties obtaining a licence to build his nine bungalows made of only natural materials. It showed the ambigious relationship Thai people have with tourists: on the one hand, many are dependent on tourism for their income, but at the same time they regret the growing number of ugly buildings and disrespectful foreigners. If even the government promotes this process, there seems to be little hope that a balance between authenticity and prosperity can be maintained. Like with any profit generating industry, there's always a trade-off.
After leaving the island, we went back to Bangkok and from there to Hong Kong. After staying there for one more night, we finally returned to Japan. It had been a great 12 days during which we had seen so many different places, met so many people and had such nice experiences that it seemed like we had been away for months.

2006-03-07T10:26:00.000+01:00

The nightview from Victoria Peak, with the Central District on the foreground and the bay and Kowloon further away in the north. During daytime it's more clearly visible, but also at night the smog covers the city with a disturbing blur.

2006-03-07T10:19:00.000+01:00

Eriko and Shi Nang in Kowloon Park (close to our hotel), in front of some older appartment buildings and modern office buildings.

Hong Kong

2006-03-07T09:30:00.000+01:00

Now let's tell something about my trip to Hong Kong and Thailand of which I already came back almost two weeks ago. I'll start with Hong Kong, were we (me and my girlfriend) stayed three nights at the beginning and one night at the end of our holiday.
Besides interest in the city, I had chosen to go there because Shi Nang Koo, a friend of mine who I met in France three years ago, lives there now. It was great to see him again, and nice to have him as our guide. Not only isn't everyone as fluent in English as you would expect from a former English colony, also the fact that vegetarian food is hard to find (especially if you can't speak or read chinese) made the help of my friend, who is also vegetarian, very usefull.
The very first thing that stood out when the bus from the airport arrived in Hong Kong was the hight of almost all buildings. While in Tokyo skyscrapers are dispersed throughout the city among lower buildings, with just some concentrations in Shinjuku, Yoyogi and some other places, in Hong Kong it's like there are no buildings with less then 20 stories. Also the shape of these buildings is interesting: in some cases because of it's originality, in most cases because of it's poor maintenance and cold concrete construction. Even though Hong Kong is a properous city (at least compared to Bangkok), it seems that there isn't much money for the maintenance of appartments, only for the construction of new ones. So between dilapidated buildings brand new appartments are being erected, so that the richer part of the population can live in well-equiped housing while the middle class has to settle for very small apartments in the older buildings.
Regardless of class, the government tries to 'educate' (or just control) the population through advertisements on television and posters on the street, encouraging you not to throw trash on the street, to keep your electrical installation in good condition and to hand your private poultry over to the authorities in the fight against the bird-flu. Whenever applicable, the considerable fine for non-compliance is also clearly shown.
Of course, Hong Kong mostly thrives on the commercial activity in the harbour, which considerable size is visible from the airport-bus: loads of containers and long rows of cranes to load and land the ships that come from all over the world. But apparently, Hong Kong is now trying to increase income from tourism, since 2006 was announced to be 'Discover Hong Kong Year'. In the offensive to lure more tourists to the city, the brand-new location of Disneyland just outside Hong Kong is widely promoted, new attractions are to be opened this year and several events will be held. Actually, we didn't notice most of this until we were about to leave Hong Kong, but at least they make an effort.
However, to me the most interesting of the whole city is just it's general atmosphere. Of course it's nice to visit some temples, see the lightshow at the bay that incorporates the most prominent buildings of the city's skyline, see contemporary traditional ink-paintings in the Museum of Modern Art or visit some of the lively streetmarkets and shoppings-streets. But the most interesting is the high percentage of foreigners living there, the impressive skyscrapers, the many small restaurants, the compact set up and accessibility of the city-center and the ever-continuing activity. This great diversity and high concentration of commercial and cultural activity in such a small area is what made the most impression on me. Maybe Hong Kong isn't and will never be a typical touristic hot-spot, but it is very interesting for anyone who is curious about how Asian cities or countries can develop through links and influences from all over the world. It makes me wonder how Tokyo failed to develop a similar diversity (at least of its population: only rarely you see a foreigner in Tokyo), and even though I haven't been to Shanghai or Beijing, I guess the rest of China will roughly move into the same direction as Hong Kong.

Job-hunting activities

2006-03-01T02:45:00.000+01:00

A funny phenomenon that has been going on now for some months here at Waseda and any other university in Japan are the job-hunting activities of third year students (of whom Eriko is one). A bachelor here takes four years, but already in their third year (or right before becoming fourth-year student, since the college-year starts in April here) students start job-hunting. In the timespan of a few months they go to congresses, information fairs, interviews and read all kinds of books and magazines explaining the characteristics, opportunities, carreer prospects and requirements of the major Japanese companies. And everybody wants to work for a major company, because that assures a stable employment, the most opportunities for promotion and the highest salary. So everybody does his best during the application for the job and the several rounds of interviews that are needed to select a few hundred or a few dozen future employees out of the thousands of applicants. This system is so different from what I was used to in Holland that I'm still surprised by its massiveness. In Holland, companies just place an advertisement in newspapers or magazines if they need new employers, and students who have already graduated from university apply for certain positions in reaction to that advertisement.
I really wonder how Japanese companies can predict during those few months of job-hunting activities what kind of and how many employees they need for the rest of the year. And I also wonder how third year students can by and large decide how the rest of their life will be in a few months. For even if it's less and less prominent, lifetime employment is still very common here. Luckily more and more students want to have more freedom, think about working for the company they enter now for just a few years or about going abroad. However, for those people it might be difficult to find a (good) job afterwards, because once they're graduated they won't have access to the enourmous job-hunting system anymore. That way, it is made sure that most students shift smoothly from university to company, without spending any time doing nothing in between.
I still wonder how I should look at all this. As a liberal, 'nuchter' (sober?) dutch guy it all seems like Japanese society tries very hard to keep control of every stage of life of its citizens. Like it's one more example of how Japanese prefer to do everything in groups, following the well-known paths that everybody follows without taking any risk. The way companies acquire those future graduates makes it look like they still feel responsibility for them, because they offer them stable positions without being sure that they need them in the future.
Luckily I just stand at the side, looking at the whole proces as an outsider. I wouldn't know what I would do if I had to choose between getting a job now or having much less job-opportunities later. In Holland, I can just wait and see.

Japanese Harmony

2006-02-28T14:58:00.001+01:00

I've been thinking about this topic for quite some time now, and even though the events I'm going to describe happened already some while ago, I still like to tell about it.
Around the beginning of december (or maybe even at the end of november) the whole class had to write a letter in Japanese that we would send to the "Letter to the Editor" section of a Japanese newspaper. We were free to choose our topic, but I soon found out that there were certain limits to this freedom. The topic I choose was "Is Japanese society so harmonious as it seems?". We could just write a short letter, so I didn't deal with the topic in-depth, but the general contents was the following:
Japan is known or likes to be known as a harmonious and peaceful country. In reality, this is reflected by a low crime rate and absolutely no violence during for example sport games (when I went to a baseball match in Tokyo, there wasn't even a police force present, just some security guards, whereas in Holland soccer matches are almost always surveyed by armed police forces). However, in movies, cartoons and anime, violence can take very explicit and extreme formes. Next to that, the sex industry is flourishing in all of its facets, and organized crime, in Japan known as the yakuza, has a strong foothold in political and corporate affairs. Now that was something I really shouldn't write about, expecially not if it was to be published in a newspaper. Not that a letter with such contents would have any chance of being published, but the teacher tried everything to let me change what I wrote. She used argumets like "But Japanese people already know about it, this isn't something that's new to the reader", but of course to me that was the whole point in mentioning it. Instead, I should better write about recent incidents of schoolchildren being kidnapped, violated and murdered on the way home from school. However, if those are incidents, does it really say something about Japanese society as a whole?
Of course everybody dissaproves of these kidnapping-incidents, but surprisingly most Japanese take the sex industry, the violent entertainment industry and the powerful yakuza for granted without asking too many questions about it. Apparently, Japanese society is just as harmonious as you want to see it.
In the end, I only changed the word "yakuza" for "organized crime" and send my letter to the Asahi Shinbun. Of course it was not published, but maybe that's all the better for my own safety ; )

2006-02-28T14:58:00.000+01:00

The view from Roppongi Hills at night, looking at the Tokyo Tower. I never get enough of Tokyo's skyline, especially at night. Even though you can't see many stars in Tokyo, the view of the city itself is not less magnificent than a dark starry night.

2006-02-28T14:51:00.000+01:00

My parents, my sister, Eriko and me at Roppongi Hills, after we visited the Mori Museum of Modern Art (with among others an exhibition about Vivian Westwood)

It's about time, shouldn't have left you

2006-02-26T04:49:00.000+01:00

It's unbelievable how fast time passes when you're having fun. Since my last update I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to tell about all the things that I'm doing. Now, let me summerize quickly why I couldn't update my weblog for so long. First of all, at the beginning of december I worked on a French-English translation project together with an Irish girl (who studied in Brussels and is thus fluent in French) and a French guy. We devided 180 pages among us three, so that each of us had 60 pages to translate before Christmas. It was a job offered by a researcher of Waseda University who wanted to have this book translated that was written by a Laotian somewhere in the 1940's - 50's in which he commented on all the injustice and extravagance displayed by the French occupation. The project was very interesting and lucrative, but also very intense regarding the short-term deadline.
Directly after finishing that, I left for Osaka to meet my parents and my sister who visited Japan during the holidays. For about two weeks I guided them through Kyoto, Nara, Tokyo and Kamakura. It was lots of fun, and a good excuse to forget about any other work that I could have done. However, the result was that when the last weeks of the first semester started, I had to pick up the classes, the studying and the homework right away, which I must say wasn't very easy. On top of that, exams were coming at the end of January, accompanied by papers and ever-continuing Japanese tests. So that was another stressfull period that I was happy to leave behind me in February.
Another more joyful reason for me not updating my weblog is that I met a wonderful girl here with who I'm together now since 18 december. Her name is Eriko Ohno, she's studying pedagogy, mostly of English at Waseda University and she seduced me by showing me the magic of music and drama during the performance of 'Fame' by the circle (club) of Waseda that she's part of. So in between and during those busy periods I spend most of my spare time with her. She also accompanied me, my parents and my sister in Tokyo and the two of us went on a trip to Hong Kong and Thailand from 11 until 23 of February. A wonderful trip, of which I will write more later on.
Actually, even though I wasn't writing, I had so many experiences, discoveries and new ideas I wanted to write about, that I have quite some catching up to do. Now that I have a long period of holidays (until the beginning of April, yes, that's a very long time and no, I don't know why either), I hope to be able to finally write down some of the things I've been thinking about and tell you more about my experiences here and in Hong Kong and Thailand.

2005-12-13T10:04:00.000+01:00

The guitarist and the singer of Increal in their daily outfit (but with sunglasses to hide their make up)

Individual group behaviour

2005-12-13T09:25:00.000+01:00

Like with most events I write about, this took place about a month ago now.
On a monday evening, there was a free Visual Kei concert in a small 'live house' called Cyber in Ikebukuro, close to where I live. First, let me explain a bit about Visual Kei. It's a music genre, but what is most apparent and at least as important as the music is the appearence of the artists and the audience (hence 'Visual' Kei). Depending on the sub-genre, they wear black dresses, ravelled clothes, colourful outfits or Victorian dresses. Colourfull hairdo's, nails, contact lenses, hats, bags etc. are all indispensible to make the image perfect. Not surprisingly, Visual Kei is especially populair among girls, but quite may guys also indulge in this vanitas. The music-genre comprises everything reaching from punk to metal to hard-rock, as long as there's guitars in it and lots of distortion. For me, this music evokes an image of big guys in shabby black clothes moshing their way through the audience whenever there is the occasion to build a pit (for everyone who can't follow me: in Holland the audience tends to act quite rough at such concerts). How different from the people who listen to the Japanese Visual Kei. The audience at Cyber consisted mostly of high-school girls wearing nice, cute clothes (even though black is the dominating colour) and all danced in perfect unison. While at 'western' hard-rock concerts everyone just jumps and slams around, here they have certain movements that everybody does at the same time, even including a gesture that symbolises a blooming cherryblossomflower. This movement is used instead of applauding to show respect at the end of a song. They also have headbanging, but also this is performed perfectly synchronicly. Apparently, the songs of famous artists have a certain order of movements related to it so that everybody knows what to do. In the case of unknown artists, the fans just have to improvise, leading to uncertain looks around but a more spontanious result. Also at the concert I went to only relatively unknown artists played, but they still succeeded in gathering quite a crowd (maybe about 100 people). I was taken there by a girl from Singapore who lives at the same dorm and who's totally crazy about Visual Kei. She goes to a concert maybe at least once a week, and since it was for free anyway, I decided to go with her to Cyber. She wanted to go there because Increal, one of her favourite bands played there (even though they're still unkown in Japan). After the concert, we talked to them and took some pictures. Check the link if you want to see what they look like during the concert (yes, I finally have links!).
Because I was interested in this Visual Kei, I also did a 'project' about it for Japanese class. We had to interview people about a certain topic, so I choose Visual Kei. First of all, I asked to people who are into Visual Kei why they liked that music and those clothes. Further on, I asked if it also influenced their life in any other way. Interestingly, of the five people I interviewed (I know it's not sufficient to draw conclusions, but I do anyway) the three high-school girls gave similar answers. They liked Visual Kei because the clothes are cute and because they want to be different from the others. For the rest, Visual Kei didn't have any influence on their lives, except that they got more friends. They also liked 'normal' clothes, as long as it's cute and looks good on the person wearing them. Two guys who where a few years older than the girls had a more elaborate opinion. They saw Visual Kei as something quite different from the 'normal' society. The influence of Visual Kei was also apparent in the fact that they can't get a job with long hair, that other people make fun of them when they walk through Tokyo in those clothes and one guy acknowledged how the dark athmosphere of Visual Kei also influenced his own thoughts and feelings. However, they didn't dislike 'normal' people or clothes - everyone should wear what he feels comfortable in.
I also interviewd people who weren't really into Visual Kei (average Waseda students). To my surprise, they were overall quite tolerant towards such different clothing styles. Some also said that it's better (more interesting) to be different from the rest, but others didn't like it if someone stands out and is too different. I think this last opinion is actually still dominant in Japan. It's better to be the same as the rest and not stand out too much (there's even a saying that translates like: the protruding nail gets hammered down). Ironically, even during the concerts this Japanese group-spirit is visible in the synchronised, identical movements.
So among Waseda students, there are also people who appreciate individuality and think that 'different' people are interesting. On the other hand, even within Visual Kei, group-spirit is still evident during concerts. But I must say, that makes those concerts into quite a special experience. I can't wait until January 7, when I go to a big one!

2005-11-28T20:26:00.000+01:00

Some of the few trees that did show some nice bright shades of autumn

2005-11-28T20:25:00.000+01:00

The hi no maru above the hills of Kamakura

Autumn Leaves

2005-11-28T19:43:00.000+01:00

In Japan, the changing of the seasons is quite an important phenomenan. While Dutch people seem to take the changes of nature for granted and are rather dissappointed when it seems that the winter once again isn't cold enough to really go skating outside or when the summer again features more rain than sunshine, Japanese people can't wait to see the obvious signs of the passing of time like the turning of the leaves or the cherished cherry-blossoms.
To get a better picture of this attitude and to see if it's really that special, I went to Kamakura with a Japanese friend last sunday to enjoy the autumn leaves. Kamakura is a small historic city about one and a half hour south of Tokyo. Of course, in Tokyo there are quite many trees with turning leaves as well, but in Kamakura the accompanying setting with old tempels, hills and Japanese gardens is more favourable to fully enjoy the natural phenomenan that the Japanese are so fond of. And I must say, Kamakura is really a nice place. There are many old tempels, there's the grave of Minamoto Yoritomo (the first Shogun of Japan, even though most Japanese probably don't really know this. He acquiered the title of Shogun in 1193 and thus established a system that would basically stay in place untill 1868) and the forests on the surrounding hills are easily accessible.
When getting off the train, I got scared seeing how many fellow Tokyo-inhabitants had chosen the same destination for that sunny sunday. It seems like the crowds of Tokyo are inescapable, but when we walked through the backstreets of Kamakura later on it was nice and quiet. So we enjoyed the temples and the nature, but the autumn leaves, the goal of our visit, where only sparsely brightly yellow and red collored. Most leaves just stayed green or turned into a more unappealing brown. However, the few nicely colored trees were popular attractions for the photo-philic Japanese - and indeed it can result in some nice pictures. The forest around Kamakura was nice aswell, but the yellow-red-green dotted hills that I had hoped for showed mostly the usual green/brownish shades of colours. But at the end of the day the setting sun compensated largely by turning into a perfect red circle, what you would call the hi no maru (name of the Japanese flag).
After this pleasant passtime we headed back to Tokyo, but before we got to Shibuya (an important station in Tokyo), we got off the train and visited a friend of my Japanese companion. We had dinner with two other Japanese girls and the menu proudly presented that perfect Japanese winter dish (even after a warm autumn day) nabe. It consists of one large cooking pot filled with dashi, a kind of bouillon, in which all kinds of vegetables, meat, squid etc. are boiled. Being a vegetarian, I could just pick the things I could eat and also enjoy this sociable dish. It was accompanied by beer and nihonshu (Japanese sake/ricewine), so before long the atmosphere got pleasantly lively. I was surprised to be able to understand most of what they were talking about, and if I didn't understand they were kind enough to patiently explain everything to me. I also wanted to study that evening, but maby this first-hand experience of talking, eating and drinking with Japanese is the best way to learn both the language and the culture. Anyway, it definitly is the most enjoyable method ; )

Can I kick it?

2005-11-20T16:30:00.000+01:00

I haven't told anything about it yet, but about a month ago I joined the Taekwondo-club of Waseda. At Waseda University, there are numerous clubs (called saakuru) that engage in all kinds of activities. I think there are at least a thousand of such saakuru, reaching from political discussion groups to the ultimate frisbee sportsclub, and from one of the many karateclubs to the magic-trick saakuru. I wanted to do a sport, and in France I really liked doing Taekwondo, so I decided to join that club. Maybe it's a bit strange to practice a martial art from Korea while I'm in Japan, but I just don't feel at ease with Japanese martial arts. They're all interesting, but I don't like the way they emphasise the standerd patterns of reacting to your opponent. Those standard reactions are only usefull if you've trained on all the possible movements your opponent could make and mastered all the reactions perfectly. Also the kata's, a standard series of movements that you wouldn't really use in a fight, seem a bit useless to me. I think it's better to practice the basic movements and then learn to improvise in using them. This is also what I like about Taekwondo: it leaves quite some space for improvisation and the basic movements themselves are great: spinning kicks, flying kicks, back-kicks and lately I've learned a flying punch. So much fun! I must admit we also practice kata's, but they are only a small part of the training. The biggest part consists of practicing kicks and punches, or series of kicks and punches that actually can be used in a fight. Sometimes we also have short spar fights, but I've only done that twice until now.
The club at the university consists of only students, of whom the best ones teach the others. They train in the 'student center', which is always filled with clubs everywhere practicing whatever they do (there are quite some singing clubs practicing in the corridors each time) because there's not enough space. We practice in a room called 'student lounge' at the 6th floor (with a view on Shinjuku's skyscrapers), but it's good enough. I go there on Wednesday. On Friday I go to a sports center in the direction of Shinjuku, where 'real' teachers (black belt, 6th dan if I remember well) teach the people who come there, only a small part of whom are Waseda-students. The others are students of other universities or employees, so it's quite a mixed group. The training there is more intense but fun to do.
One interesting thing a got to learn about at the circle is the sempai-kouhai system. This is especially strong in sport-clubs, but it actually functions in all aspects of Japanese society. When entering the club (or a company or school), the newcomer or kouhai is a kind of subordinate to everyone who entered before him. Because of this position, he has to treat his 'seniors' or sempai (also when they're not older than him) with respect, adressing him with polite language etc. Actually, at the taekwondo club this is not very important, but it's funny to see how it works. The kouhai always take the practicing materials to the room and afterwards bring them back to the locker. The sempai lead the training and ask for the salute at the beginning and end of the training. This is actually just a general sign of respect, but someone has to give the signal so that everyone says it at the same time. This results in a funny situation when the 'oldest' sempai is too modest and reluctant to take this role. However, he is always reminded of his position by his kouhai. My sempai (there are many, but one guy in particular helped me at the beginning since he's the guy who maintains the contact between the student's club and the sports center) is also quite modest about this and he only occasionally comes to have dinner after the training. First I didn't really know why, since many kouhai do have dinner afterwards. But when he came along one time it became clear to me: because he is the sempai, he had to pay for all of us, even if we say he doesn't have to. I also witnessed a nice example of this last friday when I went to an English pub close by. I was talking to some Japanese guy and asked him if he wanted to have a drink. He said he first had to ask his sempai (they were from a tennis club) who was sitting at another table. The sempai then gave him money to buy a drink for both of us! Not such a bad system after all!
In general, I try to be polite enough and behave in the way that seems the best to me. I don't mind showing respect to my fellow club-members. They are all my sempai, so I don't really have to treat any of them differently. I don't really know how to use polite language in this case though, but they probably don't mind because I'm a foreigner. I actually asked that one sempai about this whole system and he said: 'don't worry about that, just enjoy the training'. So why not follow his advice?

Past activities

2005-11-03T23:35:00.000+01:00

I'm really having trouble keeping up with all the things I'm doing here. I was planning to just write about the highlights, but I feel like I'm not even living up to that. So now I'll just write about some stuff I've been doing without getting too much into details.
First of all, quite some while ago I've been to the headquarters of the Sôtô school of Zen Buddhism. The temple in Leiden where I used to go is also founded on Sôtô principles, so maybe you could compare this to a katholic who went to the Vatican in Rome, the religious centre of his or her belief. Now in Zen, there isn't that much belief attached as with katholism, zen is mostly "just doing", so the definition of 'religious centre' should also be put in quite a different perspective. Also in the headquarters, they are 'just doing' their business, mostly administrative business. It's not a temple, no monastary or nice old building that has fulfilled this function since hundreds of years. It's just an ugly high building where the administrative affairs are taken care of. But still it's priests who are working there. So while I was waiting until someone came who could help me (I asked where I could do zazen in Tokyo), there were people walking around with shaven heads, a rakusu (a kind of ceremonial bag worn around the neck indicating that that person is initiated into buddhism) and a business suit - indeed very appropriate. Besides, part of the builing is used as a hotel (and a luxurious one to that) to generate some more revenues, so at the ground floor there's nothing at all that indicates what the actual function of the building is. There's just a sign outside saying something like "central Sôtô Shû office".
In the end I talked a bit with a young priest turned officeworker and got a list from him with some tempels where I could do zazen. In the end I went to a temple that wasn't on that list but that was named in a book I got from Zeshin, the priest in the temple in Leiden. I'll tell more about that later on.
Then I've also visited the Diet, the Parliamentary Building here in Tokyo. I was invited by a housemate to go with the Public Policy and Finance Class. I had dropped that, but because there were so few students left (just two...) we could take some friends with us. So in the end there were more people who didn't take the class, but at least some people now had the chance to see the parliament. Actaully, in the end it wasn't that much special. We just visited the Lower House (House of Councillors, comparable to the Dutch Eerste Kamer), but there wasn't a meeting going on. We just listened to a tape explaining when the builing was build and how much that had cost. Still, it was fun walking through the corridors and seeing signs of the several parties next to certain (meeting?) rooms, knowing that when the parliament is in session those same corridors are filled with politicians of those parties. And of course it was fun to be inside anyway. Some while ago I walked around it from the outside, but at every entrance there are policemen watching and it seems almost impossible to get in. Quite some contrast to the Dutch parliament (at least, the Upper house or Tweede Kamer, I don't know about the Lower house), where you can just walk in without appointment, but after leaving your bag and walking through a metal-detector. Maybe this is one of the signs of how far democracy is developed. Is politics really conducted in public, accessable to all and in a transparent and responsible way? Well, even if you get in during a meeting, most topics are already decided behind closed doors, between the factions of the LDP, the leading party with an absolute majority again after the latest elections in september. I was quite optimistic about democracy in Japan, but after following this course about Japanese monetary policy and now that the LDP again has an absolute majority, I'm not that sure anymore. In that course we talked about how the bureaucracy actually makes policy in Japan, even without that much influence of the LDP. This policy is made in councillation with business representatives, agricultural pressure groups and the biggest bank, but without any pressure from labout unions (which are always connected to a certain company) and almost no environmental organisations interfering. If the LDP really wants to make decisions 'indepentently', it has to have the support of either the business- or agricultural pressure group, the financial sector being too much linked to the Ministry of Finance. Anyway, there won't be too much to see in the Diet building.
So I went to see something that Japanese are also interested in themselves: baseball. And not just any radom match, this was the legendary match between the team of the University of Waseda (where I'm studying) and Keio University, the most important competitor in boasting to be Tokyo's second best University (after the legendary Tokyo University where all the politicians have studied). This same competition is visible in the baseball match. Actually, it were two matches and they were part of the League of Six Universities of Tokyo. Also in this case both Waseda and Keio didn't compete for the first place (that was taken by I think Heisei University) but for the second. The first match, on saturday, was won by Waseda. On sunday I went to see the final showdown. Maybe the most ardent competition was not reflected by the players on the field, but by the way the audience cheered for those players. That's really something special. First of all, they have a perfectly trained army of cheerleaders, both girls and guys. I heard that they practice about five times a week and in the weekend they have to support several teams of Waseda (next to baseball also soccer, rugby etc.) if they're playing. During the baseballmatch the cheerleaders are mostly activated when Waseda is at bat (in Dutch aan slag). Then there would be about 8 girls on a stage with a guy in the middel. While ther orchestra (seated in the gallery) plays certain Waseda-songs the guy would act as conductor (but a most energetic one) and the girls would do all kinds of dances like cheerleaders normally do. But then there are also girls standing in front of each section of the gallery to indicate how the supporters should clap their hand or actually the inflatable cilindrical barrs that produce quite some noise when hit against each other and that can be bought along with a sheet with the lyrics of the Waseda anthem. That anthem is sung before, in the middle and after the match. So when all the cheering is not in vain and the team actually gets a point, everyone put his arms around the shoulders of his/her neighbour, moves sideways to and fro and sings another Waseda song. For the rest, the cheerleading is conducted quite independently from the game (save some moment when either the batter or the pitcher needs some extra luck). So even when things turn really bad, the cheerleaders and the audience act like nothings the matter and keep supporting their team. Accordingly, no one ever shows any sign of dissaprovement, like dutch would do during a soccer game when they don't agree with the decision of the referee. So after nine innings not just the players but especially the cheerleaders and the supporters get quite tired (and then they still have to sing three verses of the Waseda anthem). By the way, the same procedures are followed in exactly the same way by the Keio supporters, but so to speak in a complementary way (cheering when Keio is at bat and with Keio songs etc). At least for Waseda all this effort was rewarded with another victory of Waseda over Keio and thereby a second place in the Six Universities of Tokyo league.
Last but not least, I went for another 'mountain walk' today. Maybe rather a hill-walk, especially compared to my previous experiences, but not less satisfactory. The tops I climbed this time didn't exceed the 857 meters and instead of the rough and rugged rocks of Mount Fuji and the Tanigawa-dake ridge I could walk on soft smooth sandy pathways leading between green forrests with here and there some yellow or red autumn colours. Because the hike was just about an hour away from Tokyo, I could easily make in time to get back in the evening. Next to the usual quiet nature, beautiful winding paths and great views there was also a big temple-precinct on the first hill I climbed, Mount Takao. This originated from a temple of the Shingon school of buddhism founded by Kôbô Diashi himself. He was one of the first to bring buddhism to Japan in the 8th century AD and Shingon is still an important buddhist school in Japan. There were some pilgrims walking up the mountain and even reciting prayers under the Biwa waterfall. Standing under a waterfall is quite a common practice in Japanese buddhism as an ascetic exercise and probably also because of the purifying characteristics attributed to
water.
Probably because of that temple (and the proximity to Tokyo), there were quite some people climbing the mountain and enjoying the sight from the top. I also got to talk to some schoolkids of about 11/12 year old. It was very funny to be surrounded by those young Japanese, explaining about what I did in Japan, in Tokyo and on that mountain.
When I walked on from the top of Mt. Takao it became more quiet while the path was still easy to find and to walk and the weather was still nice; the perfect conditions to fully enjoy the hiking. I got to Mt. Jimba and down to the bus-station perfectly in time to be back in Tokyo around 19.00 o'clock. I got off the train at Shinjuku, strolled a bit around Kabuki-cho (a very interesting part of Shinjuku because of the many Korean shops and restaurants there) and finally walked back home along Meiji-dori. Meiji-dori is a road leading through Tokyo from north to south, providing an easy route from Shinjuku to Waseda. It was so nice to get back from the (relatively) deserted mountains to the lively Shinjuku and then walking along that street, feeling like I got back home.

2005-10-31T13:00:00.000+01:00

On the second day we were still walking on the edge through the clouds but heading down and the rain and snow had disappeared.

2005-10-31T12:56:00.000+01:00

When heading for the first Tanigawa peak, Toma no mimi, a rainbow made the mountains appear nice and friendly

Over the top

2005-10-30T23:59:00.000+01:00

Defenitely the most memorable event of the past two weeks was climbing Tanigawa-Dake, a mountain-ridge north of Tokyo. In the Lonely Planet 'Hiking in Japan' guidebook it said that that climb should be done before the end of october, when the first snow starts to fall. Therefore, I wanted to go there as soon as possible, and because it seemed to be good weather on sunday 23 october, I decided to give it a try. An American girl who's also living in this dormitory and who also went to Mount Fuji with me was happy to accompany me again. Together we left the dormitory around 6.30 in the morning to take the train to Doai-guchi. Because we missed the fastest connection (maybe I should have packed my bag the day before ; ) we only arrived there around 11.30. We headed to the cablecar that would take us higher upon the mountain and when we arrived there it appeared to be packed with Japanese tourists. After standing in the line and taking the cablecar we could finally begin to climb to the first top. Tanigawa-dake is actually a ridge with several peaks. Most people just climb to the first top and then return to the cablecar, but the hike described in the guidebook would take us along the ridge over a few peaks and down to the next trainstation in the valley. It didn't seem that hard and after all: we had already climbed Mount Fuji, so how hard could it be? Getting to the first top wasn't that difficult. It took quite some time though and people coming down warned us that the last cablecar would descent at 17.00 o'clock. Since we weren't planning to go down through there we didn't really pay attention. It seemed to take about as much time to continue to the next station anyway, so it should be ok. When we were at the top, the strong wind filled the sky with clouds. If me and Jaime both had doubts about continueing, we didn't express them and therefore thought that the other one was sure about going on.
So we went on, through a mountain pass that became small, narrow and covered with snow. Instead of keeping on walking over the ridge easily we had to find our way around rocks, over peaks, through snow and along steep slopes. Because we were walking in the clouds we couldn't see much, and I could only guess how far the slopes went down on both sides of us. The nice weather of the midday in the valley had changed into a grey, cold, windy athmosphere that surrounded us at the high ridge. None of the peaks we climbed was higher than 1900 meters, considerable lower than the 3772 meter of Mount Fuji, but because this was much more to the north (close to Nikko) and a few weeks later than our climb of Fuji about seven centimeters of snow now covered the pathway. This made the climbing much more difficult and as the weather conditions worsened we became less and less sure about making it to the other station. Luckily there were some emergency huts where we could seek refuge. However, the first of those that we came across was more like a big half oil-drum with an entrance and no proper door. So we continued and after rain started falling we could only hope for a better emergency hut at the next peak. When we found it it appeared to be a big wooden cabin, much more comfortable than the half oil-drum. Since it had taken us quite some time to come this far and because of the weather we decided to spend the night there and continue the next morning. We had enough food and drinks with us, but the only protection against the cold was a blanket that was there at the cabin. However, it was much better being inside that dry cabin than outside on the cold, rainy mountain.
After the stormy night we continued. The rain had stopped and after a while the sun shone through the clouds. The rain had washed away most of the snow, so it was much easier to walk down now. It still took us three to four hours and once arrived at the station we had to wait two hours until the next train in the right direction. However, it was really nice to see that Japan also has small, deserted trainstations that can't be compared to Shinjuku, Shibuya or any metro/trainstation in Tokyo. We were really atthe countryside, but compared to the lonely mountain-tops even this little station felt hospitible and save - at least there was a vending machine where we could get hot cans of coffee! After the train finally came we still had to change three or four times before we got home maybe four hours later. We had missed all our classes of monday (for me that was just one, for Jaime that were three), our clothes were dirty, our shoes covered in mud and I had caught a cold but we had conquered another mountain, enjoyed (and suffered) nature and experienced an unforgettable adventure.

Developing economic skills

2005-10-18T02:04:00.000+02:00

Well, it's about time to talk about what I actually came to Japan for: my studies here at Waseda. Classes started some three weeks ago now, so I start to have an idea of what the several courses will be like.
Next to the obligatory Japanese language courses (of which I'll tell more later), we are supposed to choose some courses that are given in English. The long list of courses of which we could choose comprised a wide arrange of topics like Political Relations in South East Asia, Japanese Modern Litterature, Japanese Poetry (Haiku), The Modernization of Japan, Ancient Egyptian Civilization, Human Biology, Applied linguistics etc. etc.
The first week was a so called "add-and-drop week", during which everybody could follow as many courses as he/she liked, add other courses to his schedule and drop courses that he/she didn't like. This was a good system, because when you register for the courses at the beginning of the year there's just the syllabus with descriptions of the courses and evidently no detailed description of the teacher, while the quality of the courses is largely dependend on the quality of (the english proficiency) of the teacher. I initially registered for the courses Public Policy and Finance, African Developmental Politics and Economy, and Economic Development of Asia. Since I'm really interested in developmental politics/econmics (unfortunately, cash rules the world), I thought these courses would suit me perfectly. However, in the end I dropped two courses and added two new ones: Public Policy and Finance contained mostly public policy and not that much finance and the same goes for the African course. I hoped to get some more economics, because I can study politics and African development in Leiden aswell, while there's no economic department there. So instead I choose Public Economics and US-Japanese fiscal relations. The former actually mostly concerns public developmental economics (in general), so that's perfect for me. The Japanese teacher (Mr. Daimon) has been working as an advisor for the World Bank, assisting developmental countries with shaping their economy (though I don't know in what way exactly - the World Bank doesn't always seem to be giving the best advise) and teaching at other universities before coming to Waseda. Until now we've been reading about some basics of developmental economics, defining poverty, how to measure it etc. I think he'll come with some interesting theories, since Japan generally does have a diverging view on development compared to the Washington-concensus of the World Bank and the International Monetair Fund (they mostly propagate free-market economies without intervention of the state, open borders to allow foreign investors into the market, force local companies to compete with companies in other countries - which is of course impossible for developing countries - and focussing on exports - which doesn't work either because Europe and the US try to keep cheap agricultural- and textile products outside).
The Japanese alternative is also discussed in detail in the class Economic Development of Asia, tought by the Korean Mr. Park who studied in the US (I think in San Diego) and who's mostly specialised in the economic development of South Korea. However, in this class we talk about the Asian Tigers: South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore (all of whom showed remarkable economic growth after WWII) and about Indonesia, Malaysia and of course China. Japan is only touched upon briefly since it developed already before WWII. Still, there are many similarities between the developmental models of these Asian countries, including Japan. At least, that's what we've been reading about until now, but in the end it probably appears that each country followed it's own specific policy. Nevertheless, the seeming similarities are an important counterweight for the Washington consensus: the Asian model is based upon state intervention to develop certain strategic industries (mostly starting with textile, than steel and chemicals and later moving to electronic equipment, cars and computers), protecting these industries from foreign competition and exporting only products that can be produced with a comparative advantage (for example abundant cheap labour supply) and thus at lower costs than in the west.
Well, you might notice that I really love this subject. Probably since I followed the notorious course Canon II in Leiden, tought by the possibly even more notorious Mr. Anil Khosla, about the economic system in Japan and the developmental state theory of Chalmers Johnson I've been wondering if there were any similarities with the Asian Tigers and if the model could be used for the development of other developing countries, for example in Africa. I hope to find out about that during this semester.
And then there's the course about US-Japanese fiscal relations. I was hesitating to take this course because I thought I knew already enough about Voluntary Export Restraints (from Japan to the US) and the manipulation of the exchange rate of the dollar and the yen (after the Nixon shock and the Plaza accord, you can probably look it up on the internet), but in the end I decided to add the course to my schedule anyway. The most important reason was the vigour of the teacher, Mrs. Ferber, a Hungarian woman who studied at the Business and Economics University in Budapest and who's done quite some research about the Japanese economic system. When she explained to me what the course would be about (I ran into her at the elevator), she assured me that 'nothing is what it seems, and even though most people act as if there's nothing wrong, the relations between US and Japan always involved power politics and hidden agenda's'. So I got curious. Until now she's mostly dealing with the Japanese economy of which I know most features by now, but at least that means it's not difficult for me - let's hope she will really come with some shocking revelations later on.
Next to all this economic talk I also took a course with the title 'Religions of East-Asia'. In the syllabus it was described as a course about buddhism being transferred from India to China, Korea and Japan, but it appeared that that was for the second semester. This semester it will mostly deal with pre-buddhist Indian religion (brahmanism), so half of the initial students dropped the course, leaving some 12 students who are still interested. It's really nice to listen to the stories of the teacher, Mr. Iwata, who has studied sanskrit and German, so he also explains links between the languages while dealing with sanskrit words. The German atmen for example (to breathe), comes from the sanskrit atman. This concept refers to the individual holy spirit that is seen as the vital aspect of life - and as a vital condition to live - just as breathing. The course is really about the philosophical ideas of the religion and not about what the ceremonies look like and what kind of holidays they have (like religion-classes at high school), so defenitely some good food for thought.
All the above are the english courses I'm taking. Next to those four I also have Japanese courses on tuesday, thursday and friday morning about grammar, vocabulary and kanji (chinese characters). I'm in level 5b of the 6 levels that they have here but I think I'm somewhere in the lower part of the class. Some students from the University for African and Asian Studies in London are really quite good, but it's a good motivation for me to try hard. It's also interesting to experience a way to learn Japanese different from the University of Leiden. Here they really make us learn every week (every class starts with a test), write essays in Japanese, watch a video and do a speech. To make myself study the language even more I also took the course Japanese Reading, which actually also comprises writing essays and giving speeches. It seems to be quite a lot, but it's all very interesting. I came here to learn Japanese, so I really want to make as much progress as possible, read, write and learn as many kanji as possible so that maybe some day I might actually read Japanese books and write Japanese essays without looking up most of the words in the dictionary.
As for the english courses: I can't study economics at Leiden, so I want to make the most of it here. Until now it seems to work out quite well. I can keep up with the courses and it's mostly what I expected or hoped it to be. But I'm still waiting for the teachers to get a bit more into detail and start dealing with the complicated reality of the world of economics. Things are never what they seem to be!

Akihabara: images of a fleeting world

2005-10-09T14:27:00.000+02:00

I should have posted the following story some while ago, for I visited Akihabara about two weeks ago on the last evening Ignas spend in Tokyo. But you know how those things go. Well, I really wanted to tell about this, so now at last...
Maybe the most shocking revelation about Japanese society I experienced until now was in Akihabara. This part of Tokyo is known for two things: electronics and manga(comic books)/anime (the animated version) related products. Maybe innocent at first sight, but especially the second category has more gloomy sides to it than Pokemon and Dragonball Z show. Of course I knew about it: the phenomenon of pornographic manga and anime known as hentai is well known around the world. But how much different is that from all those other sex-magazines that are sold in every country? Well, here the difference between pornographic, erotic and normal (also kid's) anime is not all that clear. While walking through a store with anime-action figures I came across dolls of famous anime series like Naruto and Trigun and dolls displaying sexual activities, including violent bondage/SM like figures. At one display the mechs from futuristic anime-series were standing right next to those explicit figures. It also made me wonder why so many anime-characters have such erotic features like short skirts and tight shirts, even in child's/teenage kid's series. Maybe the target audience of these series is not limited to kids, and the action figures also collected by middle aged salary-man with socially unaccepted sexual preferences. The existence of such an audience was confirmed when I walked into a store that seemed to be selling regular videogames and DVD's. Next to the department of anime DVD's there was lots of erotic material, including DVD's with young children on the cover, their young age clearly indicated to boost sales (between 8 and 12 years old). Apparently this was no explicit sexual material - on a tv in the store they showed one such DVD with a young girl playing in some garden, wearing normal clothes or a school-uniform - but the fact that these DVD's where stacked next to DVD's that were actually explicitly erotic makes their function clear: to satisfy the fantasies of Japanese men. After seeing how many of such DVD's they were selling there me and Ignas walked to the exit of the store - and next to the door there was a staircase leading to the 2nd floor with the indication "adult section". So what do they consider the stuff that was on the first floor?!
We also came along a more innocent, but also very strange anime-phenomenon: at the entrance of a pachinko (gambling) parlor two girls in anime-character outfit were enthousiasticly and synchronicly dancing to some happy song, with some middle aged man standing around watching them and clapping their hands - it just didn't seem right.
Japanese anime is well known for the explicit violent and sexual scenes, but I never expected it to be so openly displayed in combination with more innocent anime (that seems less innocent to me now though). Don't they mind young kids seeing all that stuff? Or don't young kids come there to buy action figures? But then what are the childish (but erotic) dolls doing there? It's really disturbing seeing those genres next to each other, apparently not regarded as so much separated as I liked to see it.
Apart from those anime/manga erotics there are many places where you can watch sexvideo's or rather DVD's all over Tokyo. So not just in quaters with a certain reputation like Kabukicho or Ikebukuro, but also around the corner of Ueno park with all it's museums, and here near the station of Takadanobaba in this student's quarter. I'm wondering whether this is a good, innocent way for men to get rid of their stress and sexual desires or whether it indicates how dirty-minded many Japanese men are, and maybe these anime or movies inspire them to do things they would normally not have thought of. I hope my first assumption is true, but that would mean they don't need those DVD's to be inspired to such twisted thoughts and they already have those desires "naturally". One more evidence of such perverse desires can be seen on the website http://japundit.com/archives/2005/10/06/1311/ By the way, it's an article without any explicit material so don't be afraid.
So this is also a part of the society I live in now, one of its darker sides.

Information and Communication Technology

2005-10-09T01:29:00.000+02:00

It's been some while since I last put a post on this weblog, but I've been quite busy with university and social life. I think I'll first tell about the latter: how I'm getting along with people here.
Before I went to Japan I was quite worried about wether I would be able to get any Japanese friends to talk Japanese with. I've lived in France for one year and there it was not very easy to get close to french people (save some exceptions of the great guys who might read this ; ) As an exchange student living in an international dormitory and attending classes with mostly other international students it's quite hard to get into contact with local people.
However, some of the international students in France are locals in Tokyo, so I already know a few people here (and in Yokohama). Next to that, there are some student's associations that focus on international contacts. Most Japanese members of these so-called circles (or saakuru in Japanese) can speak some English and are looking for an opportunity to practice that language. Luckily they don't mind talking Japanese when I talk to them in their mother tongue, so I can also practice that language. These saakuru organised several parties so that international and Japanese students had a chance to meet and when sitting at a table with some Japanese students and a few bottles of beer phone numbers are quickly exchanged with many people. They also organised a basketball-match, there seems to be soccer every saturday (but I haven't yet been there) and the university also organised some 'mixer' activities. Clearly, there are enough opportunities to meet Japanese people, and apparently they are all very open, friendly and willing to establish a lasting contact. I must admit that I haven't yet made the most of it, partly because I also wanted to meet some people I still know from when I was in France. Another reason why I haven't yet much participated in student's nightlife here is that I met some other people before who I'm seeing regularly now. The way I met those was quite peculair - Ignas was still in Tokyo and while we were waiting for the underground I was looking up some kanji in a dictionary. Then a girl stepped up to me and asked whether I was studying Japanese. She was with a guy and they seemed to be on their way home after having some drinks in a bar. They invited us to a party a few days later and there I met many other Japanese - all working people, many of them hadn't even studied (just high school) but could speak English quite well. However, I still had enough opportunity to practice my Japanese and combined with some drinks and some food this was a very nice way to study the language. The next week they took me to some place called 'Bob's Lounge', some kind of international bar for foreigners who want to meet Japanese people and Japanese who want to speak English. The bar is run by a Japanese man (in his 60's?) who has lived in Texas for some while (hence his nickname Texan Bob) and makes announcements in English with a southern-american (that is US) accent every once in a while during the evening. At that place I met some more Japanese people who where all nice and relaxed - but maybe not representative for the average Japanese. Just as the average westerner might not be that interested in Japan - and at least not willing to learn Japanese - maybe the average Japanese wouldn't really want to become close friends with some weird foreigners. If that's the case, then I haven't met that many 'average' Japanese yet. Logically, only people interested in foreign countries/people come to those international parties, so for me it's quite easy to establish contacts and get along with them. Concordingly I'll never know what the average Japanese is like, cause I won't have much chance to meet him/her. (note that I consider students not as average Japanese: they are much younger and have a higher level of education). One necessary device to keep in contact here is the mobile phone. Most communication consists of e-mail from and to mobile phones (instead of the Short Message Service used in the Netherlands and France). So next to phone-numbers, e-mail adresses are very important to get through to people.
As far as foreigners are concerned, I naturally meet them at the dormitory and the university. I must say though that my meetings with Japanese people resulted in less contact with other international students. While many people of my dormitory mostly go out together in this neighbouhood, I'm heading for rendez-vous with other people in other parts of Tokyo. But well, I've just been here for some weeks now so I'll still have enough time to get to know everyone around here. For now, another important thing is to concentrate on my studies: classes have really started now, with tests and short papers coming up, lots to read and lots to learn so I think I have to adjust my schedule and spend some more time with books and less time with friends.

2005-10-08T19:24:00.000+02:00

One of the relatively innocent puppets that I found between the countles anime-figures: a small nazi-style officer (resemblance with any historical figure being purely coincidental; ).

2005-10-08T17:29:00.000+02:00

My room at the dormitory. It's furnished for two people, so the same furniture is put against the other wall of the room - but instead of another wardrobe (that's what you see at the right) there's a bathroom at the left side of the entrance, without a shower though. In the top-left of the picture you can see the airco/heater that cools the room in the summer and is supposed to heat it in the winter - both essential in Japan because of the abundant summer-heat and the lack of central heating (also during the winter).

My dormitory

2005-09-29T18:01:00.000+02:00

My dormitory is called the International Student House, of which I'm living in the South Wing on the 3rd floor. In this wing there are about 30 inhabitants, all of them international students except for the 'student assistent' who is a 5th year japanese law student from Waseda. Miss Nakamura takes on the function of both landlady and housekeeper and she's here 6 days a week during the larger part of the day.
With those 30 students (I think there are even more, but I don't remember the exact number) we share 6 showers and one kitchen with 6 cookers, some rice-cookers, toasters and microwaves. I thought this would result in a big chaos and long queus, but until now it hasn't been a problem at all. Nevertheless I think I should adapt a bit and switch to a bit easier and quicker way of cooking than I was used to. But this won't be too difficult since all I can eat here are noodles (in soup or fried) and rice, which are both quite easy to make. I still have to find out how to make it taste really good though. The kitchen is located on the 5th floor (by the way, here, as in America, they call the 'begane grond' or 'rez de chaussee' the first floor and count up from there, so the 2nd floor is actually the '1e verdieping' or '1ère étage'. I will use the Japanese/American system in this blog). On that 5th floor there is also a room where you can eat and another place where you can smoke and watch television. The showers are located on the 1st floor, so my room is conveniently halfway between both. Next to the showers there are washing machines and dryers that you can use for 100 yen (about 80 eurocent).
My room is about 18 square meters, but because it's equipped for two persons, most space is taken by the furniture. Everything is quite basic but sufficient. One nice thing is that I have my own sink and toilet, so that's already quite some luxury for me. For the rest I use one desk for my computer, and the other desk for studying (once I'll get to it). There's a small balcony, but I've only used that to dry my laundry until now - it's too hot to sit in the sun anyway. From the dormitory it's a 10 minute walk to the campus, so that's very convenient. It's somewhere between the metro-stations Waseda and Takadanobaba, from where I can easily get to more central Tokyo. I can even go to Shinjuku by foot in about half an hour. Around the dormitory there are also quite some restaurants, bars and karaoke-places, so it's always a lively city.
Since most people living in this dorm are international students the main language is still English, even though I hear a lot of Mandarin, Kantonese and Korean aswell because the asian mostly get along with people from their own country, and there are quite some asian people. For the rest there are American, French, Spanish, one guy from Uzbekistan, from Israel, Sweden etc. Even though there's just one Japanese guy living here, everyone still adapts to a more Japanese way of living, eating rice in the morning, taking off the shoes at the entrance of the dorm (according to the rules) and greeting each other in Japanese. Some asian people speak better Japanese then English, so with them I do speak Japanese. Mostly it's English though, and sometimes a bit French.
The rules here are quite strickt. We can't invite any visitors, not to stay the night but not even during the day. Only inhabitants are allowed to enter. This is quite a pitty, especially because this means that people travelling to Tokyo (family, exchange students from other cities in Japan) can't stay at my place - I'm sorry guys.
All in all I'm quite happy with this dormitory. Even though it's not completely furnished to my taste and I haven't put up any posters yet I do feel at home here. That's quite strange; maybe I even feel more at home here than in Leiden. I think that's mostly because in Leiden I was constantly looking forward to the day that I could go to Japan, so living in Leiden was just something I did in the meantime. Now that I am in Japan, I'm not longing for anything - I'm happy to be here and I'll try to enjoy this year as much as possible. I feel comfortable in this surrounding, this big city and the people I meet here. I really hate it that I have to go back next summer, but maybe I'll think differently when that time comes.

2005-09-28T10:19:00.000+02:00

Ignas above the clouds on Mt. Fuji

Ten tremendously thrilling days

2005-09-25T14:31:00.000+02:00

It's already been more than 10 days ago since I arrived in Japan, but until now I didn't really have the occasion to update this blog, sorry for that. It took some while before I got the login-name and password for the internet in my dormitory and once I got that it took until now before I had the time to sit down and try to produce an interesting account of my activities here.
Those past ten days surely have been lively, exciting and a lot of fun. I came to Japan together with Ignas Jorritsma, a friend from high-school. Normally he's studying international economics in Tilburg (the Netherlands), but this year he'll be an exchange student at the university of Oita on the Japanese island Kyushu. Before going there, he's spending two weeks in Tokyo, so we've been roaming around the city enjoying the last weeks of our holiday. Since we've both been in Tokyo before, we've already seen most of the tourist hotspots. Therefore, we tried some unconventional sightseeing and explored several Japanese passtimes. After arriving in the youth hostel in Asakusa in the north-eastern part of Tokyo we went to a public bath in that neighbourhood. This quite simple and regular Japanese custom was a perfect way to relax after a long flight and dragging our luggage from the airport to the hostel. Not just the three different baths ranging from cold to very hot and a special electric massage-feature (when sitting between two rows of electric chargers electric shocks electrify the body) were worthwhile, but especially the Japanese customers made it a nice experience. A businessman who had been travelling a lot ceased the occasion to practice his english by talking to Ignas and I tried if I could communicate in Japanese with another guy who appeared to be a buddhist priest of a local Tendai temple! Now there's already one example of Japanese culture without the exotic exterior. Instead of seeing him in his priestly robe in a temple burning incence and reciting sutra's I was just sitting next to him in the bath chatting about studying languages and buddhism in Japan, but my Japanese was not good enough to get into details. However, it was interesting to hear about the many temples in that area of Tokyo. If I remember correctly, he said that only in Asakusa there were about 260 temples (most of them small ones).
In the evening we went to eat in an izakaya near the youth hostel. We actually wanted to get a good bowl of soba or ramen (Japanese noodles), but only after we had taken a seat we discovered that we were in an izakaya. This means that they don't serve big dishes but small portions of food to accompany the drinks. To have this for dinner is more expensive than some noodles but also more fun and you can spend more time enjoying the food, the drinks and the atmosphere. Wether more expensive or not, I wanted to go there anyway because it was called Tanuki, just like the association of the Japanese Studies department in Leiden. It appeared to be a good choice, cause it was a very nice place with friendly 'bartenders' who served us drinks and prepared our food. We were sitting at the bar so we could see all the vegetables, fish and meat they were frying for us and the other customers. There were businessmen who came there after their work, a family who spend a nice evening there, a couple (or soon to be couple) and some groups of friends or colleages all having a good time and creating a lively atmosphere.
After this first day we spend our time going to a baseballmatch in the Tokyo Dome (the Giants against the Tigers, 2-7 if I'm correct and we had joined the Giants supporters), the sumo wrestling tournament that's taking place now, the Yasukuni-shrine and it's museum, some museums for modern (post 1868, the year of the Meiji revolution) and contemporary (post WWII) art and I moved from the hostel to my dormitory on the 16th. One great experience that I just can't leave out is our 17 hours walk (from last friday afternoon until saturday morning) to the top of Mount Fuji and down to Kawaguchiko. We went there with an american and a french girl who are also living in this dormitory, taking the bus from Shinjuku to Fuji fifth station (that's as far as you can go by bus). From there it's about 5 hours to the top, so we arrived there just in time to see the sunset around 18.00 o'clock. It was cloudy, but on top of the mountain we were standing above the clouds and we could still see beautiful pink, purple, orange, yellow and red colours. There was no bus going back to Shinjuku from fifth station in the morning, so we just climbed down to Kawaguchiko, which took about 12 hours so that we could take the bus from there at 7 o'clock. Maybe the bus company has a deal with the many small hotels on the mountain where you can spend the night for about 40 euro's. It's really amazing how they profit from all the people climbing the mountain: even on the top there are small restaurants and even a post-office so that you can send a postcard from mount Fuji. However, when we arrived there those were closed because the climbing season had already ended and apparently nobody climbs the mountain to see the sunset. Most people climb at night to see the sunrise, but the bus-schedule did't allow us to do that without staying at one of those hotels or just wait for hours at fifth station. At night when we climbed down, the sky cleared and next to the beautiful star-speckled sky above we could see the lights of the cities in the valley underneath.
When we finally got back to Tokyo I and the two girls had to go to the university to register for the courses we want to follow and after that we got some sleep to get ready for the party that was organised by two international student associations. Next time I'll tell more about the courses I choose, the people I've met and the dormitory where I'm staying.

Everything changes

2005-09-12T23:15:00.000+02:00

"Quand on vit, il n'arrive rien. Les décors changent, les gens entrent et sortent, voilà tout. Il n'y a jamais des commencements. (...) Ça, c'est vivre. Mais quand on raconte la vie, tout change." Jean-Paul Sartre, La Nausée

"During life, nothing happens. The scenery changes, people come in and leave, that's all. There are no beginnings. (...) That's life. But when life is told, everything changes." Jean-Paul Sartre, Disgust

Even though the above quote is taken from a gloomy, depressive book written by the near-nihilist Sartre, I recognised it as something I experience myself often aswell. The whole thing of going to Japan is a nice example. I've been planning and thinking about it the past year and all the time it seemed like something magnificent - when I told myself: "I'm going to Japan", I felt like I my life would suddenly change as soon as I would get there. But now that it's getting closer and closer (in a few hours I'll go to the airport), I realize no sudden disruption will appear. Logically, I'll go to the airport, get into the airplane, arrive in Tokyo, get to my hotel and there I'll be: nothing sudden or unexpected. In the same way, things often seem nicer beforehand or afterwards than when you're actually expriencing them. At that moment, it all seems completely normal.
However, I'm still curious what it will be like to really go there, to get to Tokyo knowing that I'll stay there for one year. And after all: life is what you make it, and I'm definitely going to make the most out of it. I guess zen-teachings about focussing on the present try to deal with this past-present-future problem by just forgetting about the past and the future. There's nothing more important then the present and that's all you have. Looking at it in that way makes my time behind this computer now just as (or even more) important as my future in Japan. Well, that future will naturally become present very soon, and I can't wait for that moment. Finally, finally I'll go there and see for myself how my life will change. I can't wait to get into that plane.

What will it be?

2005-09-10T22:10:00.000+02:00

I've been studying Japanese for two years now, but I still don't know what I should expect of daily life in Japan. During my study, I've realized that it's useless to maintain the attitude of surprise and awe, fitting the foreigner who's interested in Japan on a base of exotism. I also started my study because I thought Japan was so different from what I was used to, and I was facinated by all those unkown phenomena, but now I want to go beyond that surface and see Japan through its own eyes. In essence, there's not that much difference between Japanese or Dutch people - just the conditioning is different (the surroundings where they live in and the things they learn). To me, it seems too superficial to just focus on this difference of conditioning instead of trying to find out what it means to live in Japan as a human being. Accordingly, it would be too easy to keep looking at Japanese culture as an exotic phenomenon instead of looking at it unprejudiced. It's like determining the essential characteristics of something, of das Ding an sich. What remains of Japanese culture if you leave away the blinding colours, the deafening sounds, the intoxicating smells and the tastes that leave you craving? (What is culture anyway?) I hope to touch the true core of Japan or at least Tokyo during my stay, but I wonder if it's possible at all. However, I'm sure I have a better chance to succeed while living there than if I would stay in the Netherlands and keep looking at it from such a distance. It's probably not possible to describe such an etheric subject, so I won't learn it from books and I won't be able to tell about it myself, but I'll try to describe the experiences I have on my exploration through Japanese life.

Three days before take-off it seems like nothing ever changes. After preparing for my stay in Japan the past year, I still don't fully realize that I'll change Holland for Japan in a few days. I already left my student's house in Leiden yesterday, after celebrating my last night there in The Hague. (Thanks to everyone who joined me there, you really made it a joyfull night!) However, here at my parents place everything's still the same old same way and seems to remain like that forever, but for me a big change is about to happen. Now let's wait and see.